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“Go Big or Lose Small.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's pod, Ezra Klein is here to talk about
0:26
Speaker 1: how we finally get rid of the filibuster. Before that,
0:28
Speaker 1: Dan and I will talk about the second impeachment of
0:30
Speaker 1: former President Donald Trump and then dig into our brand
0:33
Speaker 1: new Polar Coaster results to find out what voters want
0:36
Speaker 1: from the first hundred days of Joe Biden's presidency. But first,
0:40
Speaker 1: two other Crooked Pies to check out this week. Rubicon,
0:42
Speaker 1: where Crooked's editor-in-chief Brian Boitler talks to Chris Hayes about
0:46
Speaker 1: what it will take for Biden to successfully execute his
0:49
Speaker 1: COVID plan. That episode drops tomorrow, Friday. And on this
0:52
Speaker 1: week's With Friends Like These, Ana is joined by Rebecca Traister.
0:56
Speaker 1: to discuss all the latest news through her progressive feminist lens.
1:00
Speaker 1: That is also out on Friday. So check those out.
1:05
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. If any of
1:08
Speaker 1: you placed a bet that Republican senators would hold Donald
1:12
Speaker 1: Trump accountable for inciting a deadly mob who tried to
1:14
Speaker 1: kill them and their colleagues, you should probably get ready
1:18
Speaker 1: to part with your wager. Even though the Senate impeachment
1:22
Speaker 1: trial isn't scheduled to start until February 8th, on Tuesday,
1:25
Speaker 1: Kentucky Senator Rand Paul forced his colleagues to vote on
1:28
Speaker 1: whether they believed that the trial itself is constitutional since
1:33
Speaker 1: Trump isn't in office anymore. All but five Republican senators
1:38
Speaker 1: said the trial is unconstitutional. 45 senators, Republicans, said it
1:45
Speaker 1: was unconstitutional, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. who said, quote, well,
1:52
Speaker 1: the trial hasn't started yet, and I intend to participate
1:54
Speaker 1: in that and listen to the evidence. Sure. That's why
1:58
Speaker 1: he and 44 other Republicans voted to say that the
2:00
Speaker 1: trial is unconstitutional. Where does this leave us, Dan?
2:05
Speaker 2: In a deeply dangerous place for democracy, where you have
2:08
Speaker 2: 90% of Republicans who are totally fine with their former
2:12
Speaker 2: president inciting a mob to go to their workplace and
2:17
Speaker 2: murder them. That's where we are.
2:19
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, It really, this whole thing is
2:22
Speaker 1: taking the, you know, I could go out into the
2:25
Speaker 1: middle of Fifth Ave and shoot someone and my supporters
2:28
Speaker 1: wouldn't leave me to like a whole new level.
2:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's Pennsylvania Avenue. It's where he could go and
2:34
Speaker 2: shoot someone.
2:34
Speaker 1: Right. And instead of it's, and instead of it's a supporters,
2:36
Speaker 1: it's like the, the, the Senate Republicans and House Republicans
2:41
Speaker 1: that he almost got killed.
2:42
Speaker 2: And there is a much broader discussion about this, but
2:48
Speaker 2: Every sort of excuse making that was made for the
2:51
Speaker 2: Republicans over the last few years has to be thrown in.
2:53
Speaker 2: This idea that somehow they were putting up with all
2:56
Speaker 2: of this because they just cared so passionately about unqualified
2:59
Speaker 2: right wing judges or tax cuts for corporations. He is
3:02
Speaker 2: out of the judge business. He is out of the
3:04
Speaker 2: tax cut business. The next judge he's going to deal
3:05
Speaker 2: with probably presiding over his case. And yet still they
3:10
Speaker 2: revert to who they are, which is Trumpists. Like that
3:14
Speaker 2: is what we are. That is Mitch McConnell. That is
3:16
Speaker 2: all but five Senate Republicans.
3:18
Speaker 1: So first of all, we should talk about why the
3:22
Speaker 1: trial is constitutional to do this, of course, because we
3:27
Speaker 1: are going to hear a lot now about the constitutionality
3:31
Speaker 1: of a trial of a former president, because this is
3:33
Speaker 1: the argument that all these Republicans are going to latch
3:35
Speaker 1: on to. And so you're going to have an impeachment
3:38
Speaker 1: trial where the House managers are going to prosecute the
3:41
Speaker 1: case and talk about what happened on January 6th and
3:43
Speaker 1: how Donald Trump incited this mob and the damage that
3:45
Speaker 1: they did and the danger that still remains. And then
3:48
Speaker 1: on the other side, you're just going to hear, why
3:50
Speaker 1: are we doing this? This is unconstitutional, blah, blah, blah.
3:52
Speaker 1: But there are all these fucking legal scholars telling us
3:54
Speaker 1: this and that and the other thing. So we should
3:56
Speaker 1: say from the outset. It is constitutional. There are, of course,
4:01
Speaker 1: a few scholars that don't think it is, but the
4:03
Speaker 1: vast majority of legal and constitutional scholars believe it is
4:07
Speaker 1: constitutional to hold a trial of a former president, impeachment
4:11
Speaker 1: trial of a former president. We know that because in
4:13
Speaker 1: the past, they have held impeachment trials of former senators
4:16
Speaker 1: and former cabinet officials just by common sense. The reason
4:23
Speaker 1: it's constitutional is you could commit a horrible crime and
4:27
Speaker 1: then immediately resign and avoid impeachment by resigning, and then
4:31
Speaker 1: run again. That's why you can't. That's why it's a
4:34
Speaker 1: little bit of a loophole there you can't take advantage of.
4:37
Speaker 2: Or commit a crime in your last day in office.
4:40
Speaker 2: It's not immunity, right? The following things cannot be true.
4:44
Speaker 2: Sitting presidents can't be immune from prosecution, and former presidents
4:48
Speaker 2: cannot be immune from impeachment and removal if they commit
4:52
Speaker 2: crimes in the waiting days in office. It's not how
4:54
Speaker 2: the system is designed. It's not how it works. The
4:57
Speaker 2: quote-unquote legal scholars who are putting this argument forth are
5:02
Speaker 2: right-wing hacks. They are reverse engineering a legal argument to
5:09
Speaker 2: help Donald Trump. That is what they are doing.
5:11
Speaker 1: Well, it's also, if you don't believe that he should
5:14
Speaker 1: be held accountable for inciting the riot, or you didn't
5:17
Speaker 1: believe that he incited the riot, just fucking say it.
5:21
Speaker 1: Have the balls to just say it. Don't hide behind
5:24
Speaker 1: some fucking constitutional argument. You know, that's like you get
5:28
Speaker 1: your trot out your stupid legal scholars. Oh, we can't.
5:31
Speaker 1: We just can't hold the trial. Just stand up and say,
5:35
Speaker 1: I don't think that Donald Trump did anything wrong. Just
5:37
Speaker 1: say it. Say it. But they don't want to. I mean,
5:41
Speaker 1: some of them do. Some of them are perfectly fine
5:43
Speaker 1: with saying it. But a bunch of them just don't
5:46
Speaker 1: want to. What do you think happened to... To our
5:50
Speaker 1: boy Mitch. So it was just a few weeks ago
5:54
Speaker 1: that he and his staff refused to challenge a New
5:57
Speaker 1: York Times story that said McConnell believed Trump committed an
5:59
Speaker 1: impeachable offense and he saw impeachment as an opportunity to
6:03
Speaker 1: purge Trump from the party. And then, in case you
6:07
Speaker 1: didn't believe the whole New York Times story, he went
6:09
Speaker 1: to the Senate floor publicly and McConnell said that Trump, quote,
6:13
Speaker 1: provoked the mob. So McConnell's on record saying that. And
6:18
Speaker 1: then you've got the New York Times story that they
6:19
Speaker 1: never shot down. So what happened to McConnell? Yeah, of course,
6:22
Speaker 1: he still says he's going to like listen to the arguments.
6:25
Speaker 1: But he voted with Rand Paul that the trial is unconstitutional.
6:30
Speaker 2: He voted not to hear the arguments. That is what
6:33
Speaker 2: he voted for. So I'm getting the sense he might
6:36
Speaker 2: be full of shit. To go back to that New
6:39
Speaker 2: York Times story a few weeks ago, which I don't
6:42
Speaker 2: know how time is still crawling because it feels like
6:45
Speaker 2: 17 months ago, but I think it was three weeks ago.
6:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:49
Speaker 2: That is a classic trial balloon. Mitch McConnell was debating
6:53
Speaker 2: two outcomes. One is taking advantage of an opportunity to
6:58
Speaker 2: rid Trump from the party, and the other is to
7:00
Speaker 2: double down on Trumpism. So he floated it out there,
7:03
Speaker 2: and a trial balloon is when a public figure, usually
7:06
Speaker 2: a politician– floats an idea with some plausible deniability. It's
7:11
Speaker 2: from AIDS on back. Now, you neither confirm nor deny it.
7:14
Speaker 2: Just let it sit up there and see who shoots
7:15
Speaker 2: it down, right? That's it. That's what this was. It's
7:18
Speaker 2: pretty clear that the response from the right and from
7:22
Speaker 2: probably members of his own caucus, the insurrectionist wing of
7:24
Speaker 2: the Republican Party, which apparently is 90% of Senate Republicans,
7:28
Speaker 2: responded in a way that caused Mitch McConnell to back
7:30
Speaker 2: down off of that, to give him the choice between
7:33
Speaker 2: abandoning Trump and doubling down on Trump. He suck his
7:37
Speaker 2: finger in the wind, and the wind was blowing towards
7:39
Speaker 2: doubling down on Trump.
7:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, what these Republicans want in the
7:45
Speaker 1: Senate is to keep their jobs. And they only keep
7:50
Speaker 1: their jobs if the base is happy, and the base
7:53
Speaker 1: is only happy if you support insurrectionist Donald Trump. And
8:02
Speaker 1: the base is riled up and controlled by... Fox and
8:05
Speaker 1: Newsmax and OAN. That's the story. Like Mitch McConnell and
8:09
Speaker 1: all those Senate Republicans could have tried to stand up
8:12
Speaker 1: against Donald Trump and impeached him or convicted or, you know,
8:16
Speaker 1: they could have tried to stand up against Donald Trump
8:18
Speaker 1: and convicted him. But we know what would have happened
8:22
Speaker 1: if they did. Primary challenges, the whole primetime Fox lineup
8:26
Speaker 1: telling them that they're rhinos, Newsmax, OAN. worse online, worse
8:32
Speaker 1: on Facebook, death threats. The whole party would have fallen apart. Honestly, politically,
8:40
Speaker 1: it's probably the right move for them.
8:41
Speaker 2: That is the exact right point. If you put aside morality, patriotism,
8:46
Speaker 2: public service- No, this was smart politics. It is a
8:50
Speaker 2: rational decision to do this, which is the thing that
8:53
Speaker 2: we as Democrats have to understand because Republicans are following
8:56
Speaker 2: their political incentives. politicians filed their book incentives. If we
9:01
Speaker 2: can replace the individual Republicans, we can yell about them,
9:04
Speaker 2: we can tweet at them. But even if we beat
9:07
Speaker 2: Josh Hawley, or he loses in a primary to a
9:10
Speaker 2: more moderate Republican, or Ted Cruz is gone, in the end,
9:13
Speaker 2: the incentives that push the Republicans inexorably in this direction
9:18
Speaker 2: will continue. Because the polling is clear on this. People
9:22
Speaker 2: want Trump to be held accountable. They want To move
9:25
Speaker 2: on from this era, they have deep concerns about Trump.
9:29
Speaker 2: Definitely the American people are anti-insurrection, the majority of them.
9:34
Speaker 1: Good news.
9:35
Speaker 2: Thank goodness. For now. We have to watch the polling.
9:39
Speaker 2: But right now, the insurrection argument loses. The Republican Party
9:47
Speaker 2: is captive to a distinct minority of the American population.
9:53
Speaker 2: And the only thing we can do to make them
9:55
Speaker 2: behave differently is to change their political incentives because that
10:00
Speaker 2: minority has a massively disproportionate share of political power. And
10:04
Speaker 2: this is why we'll talk about this when we talk
10:05
Speaker 2: about polling and the For the People Act and the
10:07
Speaker 2: filibuster and all of that. But if you want to
10:09
Speaker 2: stop the Republicans from appealing to this distinct minority, you
10:13
Speaker 2: have to change your political structures so they have to
10:17
Speaker 2: appeal to the majority.
10:19
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, to put it simply,
10:20
Speaker 1: you have to beat them. Democrats have to beat them
10:23
Speaker 1: in general elections up and down the ballot because right
10:26
Speaker 1: now they fear the primary challenge from the right more
10:29
Speaker 1: than they fear the general election opponent who's a Democrat.
10:33
Speaker 2: I think it's even more than that.
10:35
Speaker 1: And that's been the case for a while.
10:37
Speaker 2: I think we lived in this world that we believe
10:41
Speaker 2: that there's this theory that the way you change a
10:44
Speaker 2: party's direction is you beat them three times in a row.
10:46
Speaker 2: That is how the Democrats, we can debate some of
10:50
Speaker 2: the value of those changes, but Democrats changed strategy after
10:52
Speaker 2: losing in 80, 84, 88. And they moved to the middle.
10:57
Speaker 2: And that won them the election in 1992. I think
11:00
Speaker 2: a lot of us believe that if the Republicans had
11:02
Speaker 2: lost in 2016, that's when they would have had the
11:06
Speaker 2: proverbial come to Jesus moment, maybe adopted the autopsy report
11:10
Speaker 2: of 2012. But I think it's bigger than that. Beating
11:13
Speaker 2: them is not enough. I think we have to beat them.
11:16
Speaker 2: and then use that political power to make American politics
11:19
Speaker 2: more democratic. Because the only thing that will change them
11:22
Speaker 2: is them having to appeal to the majority of Americans.
11:24
Speaker 2: If Ted Cruz had to actually appeal to all Texans,
11:28
Speaker 2: not just the Texans that can slip through the massive
11:31
Speaker 2: voter suppression in Texas, then he would have to take it.
11:34
Speaker 2: He could not be pro-insurrection and win, right? The same
11:36
Speaker 2: thing is true of all these Republicans, at least in
11:38
Speaker 2: purple and bluish states.
11:42
Speaker 1: I completely agree with that. And I think that would
11:44
Speaker 1: improve our chances of beating them, too. Yeah, yeah. It's
11:49
Speaker 1: also the right thing to do. But I will say
11:51
Speaker 1: if we also have to beat them by a lot,
11:53
Speaker 1: you know, like I mean, and I know it's yes,
11:56
Speaker 1: Joe Biden won by seven million votes. But if you
11:57
Speaker 1: look at the states that add up to 270, he was,
12:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, a few, 30, 40,000 votes away. If
12:06
Speaker 1: like 30,000 votes went the other way, 40,000 votes went
12:09
Speaker 1: the other way in three states, Donald Trump would be
12:11
Speaker 1: president right now. So I think Republicans look at that
12:13
Speaker 1: map and they're like, you know, we lost to Joe Biden,
12:16
Speaker 1: but we were close. We were close enough that we
12:19
Speaker 1: might've been able to steal it if we were a
12:20
Speaker 1: little closer in a couple of states.
12:22
Speaker 2: That's a system problem.
12:23
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, no, like, and they're looking
12:25
Speaker 1: at the House, in the House in 22, and they're like,
12:27
Speaker 1: You know, Dave Wasserman, Cook Political Report, just did his
12:30
Speaker 1: first redistricting outlook and said Republicans could pick up six
12:37
Speaker 1: House seats just by drawing new maps alone. The six
12:41
Speaker 1: House seats they need to take back the House in
12:42
Speaker 1: 22 just by redrawing the maps, which is, again, an
12:45
Speaker 1: argument for ending partisan gerrymandering. But like they're looking at
12:49
Speaker 1: that map and they're like, yeah, we just lost the House,
12:52
Speaker 1: the Senate and the presidency here. thanks to Donald Trump
12:55
Speaker 1: over the last four years, but we're still pretty close.
13:00
Speaker 1: And so our strategy of riling up the base and
13:02
Speaker 1: getting the base out, not giving a shit about like
13:05
Speaker 1: middle of the road voters, swing voters, eh, it's pretty close.
13:09
Speaker 1: It's pretty close. We might be able to win with that.
13:11
Speaker 2: I think we're saying the same thing, but I just
13:13
Speaker 2: want to put a finer point on what I think
13:16
Speaker 2: we're both trying to say, which is this is not
13:19
Speaker 2: about a different Democratic campaign strategy. It's not about having
13:25
Speaker 2: a better message or better ads or better organizing. We
13:28
Speaker 2: need all of those things. The Republican Electoral College Advantage...
13:35
Speaker 2: is getting worse for us if we stay on the
13:37
Speaker 2: same trajectory. The Republican Senate advantage is getting dramatically worse
13:42
Speaker 2: for us very quickly. And if you want to actually
13:46
Speaker 2: be in a position where our 7, 8, 9 million
13:50
Speaker 2: person presidential popular vote win is reflecting electoral college, you're
13:54
Speaker 2: going to have to make some changes in how these
13:56
Speaker 2: things are done. You're going to have to change... We
13:59
Speaker 2: can't change electoral college without a constitutional amendment, but you
14:02
Speaker 2: can make it easier for people to vote in these states.
14:05
Speaker 2: You can reduce voter suppression. You can do all of
14:07
Speaker 2: those things. And it's not going to happen naturally. And
14:10
Speaker 2: it takes using the political power we have to invest
14:14
Speaker 2: in future political power and invest in democracy. Yeah.
14:18
Speaker 1: And all I'm saying is it also takes us winning
14:22
Speaker 1: in the shitty elections. minority rule system that we have.
14:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:27
Speaker 1: Absent some pretty dramatic changes that we will talk about
14:29
Speaker 1: in a bit.
14:30
Speaker 2: Yes. Okay.
14:32
Speaker 1: So back to impeachment. Big question now is what should
14:37
Speaker 1: Democrats do next? So Senator Tim Kaine said he's working
14:41
Speaker 1: on a censure resolution either as an alternative to a trial,
14:45
Speaker 1: which would be time consuming and ultimately fail to get
14:48
Speaker 1: a conviction, or either a censure or he could do
14:52
Speaker 1: a censure resolution after the trial. Um, it's not clear
14:56
Speaker 1: which one they're going to go with yet or thinking
14:58
Speaker 1: about going with yet. And the hope there would be
15:00
Speaker 1: that you get more Republican senators to sign on to
15:02
Speaker 1: a censure of Trump. And so people know a censure
15:04
Speaker 1: is basically an official resolution to just like say that
15:08
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's an asshole.
15:09
Speaker 2: I don't know.
15:12
Speaker 1: It seems so quaint, like a censure resolution. Well, We
15:15
Speaker 1: hereby condemn Donald Trump. And then it goes in the
15:18
Speaker 1: history books. Donald Trump condemned by the Congress. Wow. Man,
15:23
Speaker 1: he's going to learn his lesson. I don't know. What
15:24
Speaker 1: do you think about that?
15:27
Speaker 2: I love Tim Kaine. Great guy. Great senator. Would have
15:31
Speaker 2: been a great vice president. Tim Kaine, develop an inner monologue.
15:37
Speaker 2: Maybe talk to your colleagues about this. Work behind the scenes.
15:40
Speaker 2: Maybe start the trial before we start. Throw in the
15:43
Speaker 2: white flag of surrender here. This is probably where we're
15:46
Speaker 2: going to end up. And I am actually very sympathetic
15:48
Speaker 2: to the point that Tim Kaine makes, which is we
15:50
Speaker 2: have a lot of shit to do. As a Senate.
15:53
Speaker 1: And it's clear we're not getting a conviction because of
15:55
Speaker 1: that vote. I mean, I get he shouldn't have said
15:57
Speaker 1: it out loud, but it's pretty fucking obvious to anyone
16:00
Speaker 1: who saw the vote that if you only have five
16:03
Speaker 1: Republicans who think that the trial is constitutional and you
16:06
Speaker 1: need 17 to convict Donald Trump, do the fucking math.
16:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very torn on this because we knew when
16:14
Speaker 2: we were advocates for Donald Trump being impeached back in 2019, 2020,
16:20
Speaker 2: He was going to get acquitted. That was almost a guarantee.
16:24
Speaker 2: But we thought there was value in putting on a
16:29
Speaker 2: public display of his crimes. It's not clear whether that
16:34
Speaker 2: value measured up to what we thought it would or
16:35
Speaker 2: just got flushed down the memory hole or lost in
16:37
Speaker 2: a pandemic. It's hard to say.
16:41
Speaker 1: The memory hole in this country lasts about 24 hours now.
16:44
Speaker 1: So yes, it did get flushed down the memory hole.
16:47
Speaker 1: We had an attack on the Capitol a couple of
16:49
Speaker 1: weeks ago and people are like, where's the unity? I mean,
16:53
Speaker 1: we are like, we can't fucking keep anything in our
16:55
Speaker 1: heads for more than a day. If that a day
16:59
Speaker 1: is a lot at this point anyway, but.
17:02
Speaker 2: The looming election was an argument for going through the process.
17:06
Speaker 2: Even if the game was rigged, that does not exist now.
17:10
Speaker 2: So it is, I, I don't know what the right
17:13
Speaker 2: answer is. Can a president, actively incite a mob to
17:18
Speaker 2: attack the Capitol and get away with nothing more than
17:21
Speaker 2: a symbolic slap on the wrist? Are we just going to, well,
17:25
Speaker 2: Republicans are against accountability, so we let it go. It's
17:27
Speaker 2: a very, it's very hard.
17:30
Speaker 1: John Barrasso, Senator from Wyoming, Republican Senator from Wyoming, was
17:33
Speaker 1: asked about this today. He said, yeah, it's not happening.
17:36
Speaker 1: He's not getting a conviction. Look at the math. And
17:38
Speaker 1: then he was asked, what about a censure resolution? He's like, no, no, no,
17:41
Speaker 1: we're not going to do censure either. Like, why? He's like, well,
17:44
Speaker 1: he was impeached twice. That's going in the history books.
17:46
Speaker 1: He'll be the first president who got impeached twice. So there.
17:50
Speaker 1: That's it. That's enough for John Barrasso. I mean, this
17:52
Speaker 1: is why, but I was saying this weeks ago. I
17:54
Speaker 1: think that, not that this would have changed anything, but
17:58
Speaker 1: the argument for convicting Donald Trump now that he's out
18:01
Speaker 1: of office is to prevent him from running for office again.
18:05
Speaker 1: The man incited a mob. The man is dangerous. He's
18:09
Speaker 1: thinking of running for president again in 2024. Do we
18:13
Speaker 1: want to allow an authoritarian who was incited violence when
18:17
Speaker 1: he had the seat of power in this country to
18:20
Speaker 1: do it again? And you look forward and you talk
18:23
Speaker 1: about the future. And for some reason, that wasn't the
18:25
Speaker 1: overall message. I heard some Democrats, elected Democrats, who I
18:30
Speaker 1: think are smart and respect and like some Democratic strategists
18:32
Speaker 1: be like, I don't really think we should do the
18:35
Speaker 1: he should run again argument because like, I'm happy to
18:39
Speaker 1: have him run again and beat him again. Or I
18:41
Speaker 1: think we can beat again. I'm not worried about that.
18:43
Speaker 2: Like, what?
18:45
Speaker 1: I'm not taking that bet. I want that man barred
18:48
Speaker 1: from ever running for office again. That's why, that's the
18:50
Speaker 1: only reason I actually think this is worth it.
18:53
Speaker 2: Yes, I agree with that. I certainly am not willing
18:55
Speaker 2: to take the risk that Donald Trump could stumble ass
18:58
Speaker 2: backwards in the presidency again. We barely survived the first time.
19:01
Speaker 1: We played that game. We played that game. We all lost.
19:04
Speaker 2: You don't often get to decide whether to play Russian
19:07
Speaker 2: roulette twice.
19:08
Speaker 1: The fuck?
19:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the problem with that argument is once again,
19:13
Speaker 2: It is very compelling to us and 60% of the
19:17
Speaker 2: country or maybe more, but it has the exact opposite
19:21
Speaker 2: effect with the voters these Republican senators are most responsive
19:24
Speaker 2: to because they want Donald Trump to run again. He
19:27
Speaker 2: is their first choice right now.
19:28
Speaker 1: I mean, except the ones who might want to run themselves. Well,
19:34
Speaker 1: I also think, by the way, and Brian Boitler wrote
19:37
Speaker 1: about this in the New York Times a couple of
19:39
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and I saw a couple of people bring
19:42
Speaker 1: this up recently. There is the 14th Amendment route, which
19:46
Speaker 1: would only require a majority vote. The 14th Amendment bars
19:49
Speaker 1: any person who sworn an oath to the Constitution and subsequently, quote,
19:52
Speaker 1: engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given
19:56
Speaker 1: aid or comfort to the enemies thereof from ever holding
19:59
Speaker 1: office again. Now, again, few scholars here and there, they're like,
20:03
Speaker 1: I don't know if it can be used, but like,
20:05
Speaker 1: I don't know. It only requires a majority vote. That's
20:07
Speaker 1: 51 votes in the Senate. You've got five Republican senators
20:10
Speaker 1: who are willing to at least hear the trial and
20:13
Speaker 1: possibly convict Donald Trump. I would think about going the
20:16
Speaker 1: 14th Amendment route because if you can bar him from
20:18
Speaker 1: office again, then I don't mind as much that he
20:22
Speaker 1: doesn't get convicted a second time.
20:24
Speaker 2: I think it's at least getting people on record is
20:28
Speaker 2: a useful thing to do. I mean, you have to
20:30
Speaker 2: balance all of these things against the days not spent
20:34
Speaker 2: passing the Biden agenda. Right.
20:37
Speaker 1: Well, to me, that's even quicker. Put it on the floor,
20:40
Speaker 1: take a vote. Let's move on to COVID relief. So
20:42
Speaker 1: the question is, Dan, if we go ahead with the trial,
20:46
Speaker 1: which does seem likely, it doesn't seem like we're backing
20:47
Speaker 1: down from the trial now. Fine. How can Democrats make
20:50
Speaker 1: it worthwhile knowing the outcome is all but certain, knowing
20:55
Speaker 1: that this isn't like the last impeachment where the House
20:57
Speaker 1: prosecutors were also making a case to the public about
21:00
Speaker 1: why Donald Trump shouldn't be reelected?
21:04
Speaker 2: To the extent that there is political value in this,
21:07
Speaker 2: it is in drawing the lines between what Trump did
21:12
Speaker 2: and what the Republicans pushed. They are all guilty. Trump
21:16
Speaker 2: may be the one on trial, but they're all part
21:18
Speaker 2: of the conspiracy. They all pushed this lie. Mitch McConnell,
21:21
Speaker 2: who was so horrified by what Trump did, waited an
21:24
Speaker 2: entire month before acknowledging the electoral results because he thought
21:26
Speaker 2: it would help him in Georgia. And so- Trump is
21:30
Speaker 2: the one who would be convicted here, but you want
21:32
Speaker 2: to put the entire party on trial before the public.
21:35
Speaker 2: But you should do it expeditiously.
21:37
Speaker 1: You should do it expeditiously. I know there's a question
21:39
Speaker 1: of whether you call witnesses because, of course, witnesses could
21:42
Speaker 1: take more time and both parties could call witnesses. And
21:44
Speaker 1: I would not drag this out because I do think
21:46
Speaker 1: we should move on to COVID relief as fast as
21:49
Speaker 1: we can. But, you know, we said at the beginning,
21:51
Speaker 1: like Donald Trump almost had a lot of Republicans and Democrats,
21:57
Speaker 1: members of Congress, killed in People were killed in this.
22:00
Speaker 1: Five Americans died. One of them was a police officer.
22:03
Speaker 1: There were other police officers who were horribly injured. There
22:07
Speaker 1: are people who stormed the Capitol on record saying, I'm
22:12
Speaker 1: here because my president told me to be here, right? Like,
22:15
Speaker 1: I would just connect a few of the dots for
22:17
Speaker 1: the public just to remind people. I know, again, it
22:21
Speaker 1: might like, people might forget about it within a couple
22:23
Speaker 1: of weeks, but if we're going to have the trial,
22:25
Speaker 1: you might as well make the best case possible that
22:27
Speaker 1: you're right, that not only Donald Trump, but much of
22:29
Speaker 1: the Republican Party was complicit in this attack and that
22:33
Speaker 1: we're still in danger, that House Democrats right now are
22:36
Speaker 1: running around really scared that they're getting threats. A guy
22:40
Speaker 1: was arrested this morning with 20 rounds of ammo outside
22:44
Speaker 1: the Capitol building. Like these threats are ongoing. You know, again,
22:49
Speaker 1: as much as you can sort of push everything forward
22:52
Speaker 1: so that this trial isn't really about relitigating the past,
22:55
Speaker 1: but talking about what kind of future we're going to have.
22:57
Speaker 1: Are we going to have one where we allow Donald
22:58
Speaker 1: Trump to run again and put us in danger? Are
23:00
Speaker 1: we going to have one where we allow the Republican
23:02
Speaker 1: Party to put us in danger, to put their own
23:05
Speaker 1: colleagues in danger because of this kind of crazy and
23:10
Speaker 1: horrible rhetoric that they keep spouting and these lies that
23:14
Speaker 1: they keep telling?
23:15
Speaker 2: Almost simultaneous to the Republicans voting against to not hold
23:20
Speaker 2: Trump accountable, the Department of Homeland Security put out a
23:23
Speaker 2: terror alert that there was potential terrorist attacks on US
23:28
Speaker 2: government facilities incited by and inspired by the riot on
23:33
Speaker 2: the Capitol that was, of course, incited by Trump. So
23:36
Speaker 2: just if you want to, this is not a theoretical thing.
23:39
Speaker 2: There is an actual ongoing danger from this, not just
23:42
Speaker 2: to the members of Congress, which would be horrible enough
23:45
Speaker 2: in and of itself, but to people all around the country.
23:48
Speaker 2: And this is the The choice the Republican Party is
23:50
Speaker 2: making is we're going to do nothing about it. We're
23:52
Speaker 2: going to say it is okay that it happened.
23:57
Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz, who wants to be in House leadership, is
24:01
Speaker 1: going to Wyoming to put on some stunt to piss
24:05
Speaker 1: off Liz Cheney and sending a text to his supporters like, hey,
24:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to stand up to Liz Cheney. Come on, patriots,
24:11
Speaker 1: come with me. Like, what? After what just happened, you're
24:15
Speaker 1: trying to build a crowd to put pressure on Liz Cheney?
24:19
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy is meeting with Donald Trump as we speak
24:23
Speaker 2: to make sure everything's okay and they're all still friends
24:26
Speaker 2: and that he will still be a part of the
24:28
Speaker 2: Republican Party. Yeah, it is. He tried to have them murdered.
24:34
Speaker 2: People almost died because of this. It is by the
24:37
Speaker 2: grace of God that something even worse than the horrible
24:39
Speaker 2: thing happened did not happen. Their lives were at risk.
24:42
Speaker 2: Their staffs were at risk. And the response to that is... hey,
24:46
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, sorry that we got a little briefly mad
24:50
Speaker 2: about that. Are we still cool? Like, that is the response.
24:54
Speaker 1: They were chanting, hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence. And
24:59
Speaker 1: and you can only get five of them in the
25:02
Speaker 1: Senate to convict or they were saying, hang Mike Pence.
25:04
Speaker 1: And then we think like we think 10 of them
25:07
Speaker 1: are going to jump on board Biden's covid relief plan.
25:10
Speaker 1: What fucking universe are we in right now? Well, no, John,
25:14
Speaker 1: I don't know.
25:15
Speaker 2: New York Times editorial. Biden should stop doing executive actions
25:19
Speaker 2: and start using his years of Senate experience to peel
25:22
Speaker 2: off five insurrectionists. To support his COVID plan. That is
25:26
Speaker 2: from the fucking geniuses at the New York Times editorial board.
25:30
Speaker 1: They're not going to protect their Republican vice president who
25:33
Speaker 1: a mob was outside chanting, hang Mike Pence, but they're
25:36
Speaker 1: going to, yeah, they're going to sign on for that extra,
25:39
Speaker 1: extra billion dollars and trillion dollars in COVID relief. Yeah,
25:42
Speaker 1: that makes sense. It's just, I don't know. So just
25:47
Speaker 1: from our poll, before we move off on this, like,
25:49
Speaker 1: you know, we asked people, should Congress focus on this
25:55
Speaker 1: impeachment trial, should they prioritize COVID relief? Should they try
25:58
Speaker 1: to do both? I actually thought that both would win there.
26:04
Speaker 1: But prioritizing COVID relief won a plurality. And then it
26:09
Speaker 1: was both. And it was something like only 7% thought
26:13
Speaker 1: that they should prioritize the impeachment trial. So there is
26:15
Speaker 1: sort of a warning for Democrats there, you know, that
26:20
Speaker 1: like we The trial is important. I called for it.
26:24
Speaker 1: I agree with it. But it does have to happen
26:26
Speaker 1: fast because people do not want the Congress to spend
26:29
Speaker 1: a lot of time on this.
26:30
Speaker 2: Just one, I think, point for people to understand is
26:33
Speaker 2: the way this is likely to proceed, even if there
26:35
Speaker 2: was no trial, was the House would act first, send
26:38
Speaker 2: something to the Senate, which is what preserves our ability
26:40
Speaker 2: to do budget reconciliation. So it is not as if...
26:45
Speaker 2: there's a whole, yes, the Senate could be doing things.
26:47
Speaker 2: There certainly could be confirming more of Biden's nominees. We're
26:50
Speaker 2: in a pandemic. We don't have an HHS secretary. There's
26:53
Speaker 2: an ongoing terror threat from an insurrectionist. We don't have
26:56
Speaker 2: a DHS secretary. So there are confirmations that could happen.
26:59
Speaker 2: But in terms of COVID relief, it is a little
27:01
Speaker 2: bit of a sequential process that does not suffer greatly
27:05
Speaker 2: from the trial plan as we understand it.
27:08
Speaker 3: Yeah.
27:09
Speaker 1: Though viewers at home will be told that it's suffering
27:11
Speaker 1: greatly by Republicans who will say, look at what Democrats
27:14
Speaker 1: are doing as opposed to helping you.
27:16
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes. There is risk here.
27:18
Speaker 1: That will be a message that we have to push
27:20
Speaker 1: back on. All right, let's talk about the poll. So
27:34
Speaker 1: together with our friends at Change Research, we surveyed 1,742
27:37
Speaker 1: registered voters nationwide from January 22nd to 23rd, to find
27:43
Speaker 1: out what people want President Biden and Congress to get
27:45
Speaker 1: done in these first 100 days and what they think
27:47
Speaker 1: of the plans that have been proposed so far. Let's
27:51
Speaker 1: start with people's top priorities, which we asked in the
27:54
Speaker 1: form of an open-ended question, and then we asked as
27:58
Speaker 1: a list of options from which they could choose three.
28:01
Speaker 1: And we found that in both sets of questions, the
28:03
Speaker 1: top priorities are controlling the virus, distributing the vaccine, and
28:08
Speaker 1: getting economic relief. Makes sense. Anything jump out at you
28:12
Speaker 1: in terms of what people prioritized either in the open-ended
28:17
Speaker 1: question or in the multiple choice list?
28:21
Speaker 2: The difference between Republicans in the multiple choice list and
28:26
Speaker 2: the open end was very interesting. And it speaks to
28:29
Speaker 2: what is top of mind in their information ecosystem. In
28:33
Speaker 2: the open end, they were more likely to say COVID.
28:37
Speaker 2: But when they saw the When they were presented with
28:40
Speaker 2: election reform to deal with voter fraud, they leapt at
28:42
Speaker 2: that answer. And it was very high on their priority list,
28:46
Speaker 2: which I think speaks to just existing in a Fox
28:49
Speaker 2: News role.
28:51
Speaker 1: But not something that they came up with on their own,
28:53
Speaker 1: which is why I love the idea of an open-ended question. Like,
28:55
Speaker 1: what are your priorities for the new government? And it's
28:58
Speaker 1: so– it's like it gives you a glimpse of what
29:00
Speaker 1: if we lived in a world without– like all of
29:04
Speaker 1: that sort of partisan reasoning thrown in there, right? Where
29:06
Speaker 1: you're given all these options like voter fraud or debt
29:09
Speaker 1: and deficit was the other one. Debt and deficit was
29:12
Speaker 1: only mentioned eight times, not 8%, eight times out of
29:17
Speaker 1: 1700 plus people in the open-ended question. In the multiple
29:21
Speaker 1: choice question, Trump voters chose debt and deficits as their
29:24
Speaker 1: second highest priority after the voter fraud that you mentioned. Unbelievable.
29:30
Speaker 2: I mean, it goes to what? We have been talking
29:33
Speaker 2: about for a long time, which is the greatest challenge
29:35
Speaker 2: we have to having a functioning democracy is our completely
29:40
Speaker 2: broken information ecosystem.
29:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I will say for the Biden voters, there
29:45
Speaker 1: was an interesting one too, which is not in the
29:48
Speaker 1: open-ended question, the Biden voters naturally gravitated to COVID answers
29:52
Speaker 1: that we talked about, healthcare, immigration, climate. But in the
29:57
Speaker 1: multiple choice question, the second highest priority for the Biden
30:02
Speaker 1: voters after the COVID stuff was, uh, holding Trump accountable,
30:07
Speaker 1: which again was not something that people brought up on
30:09
Speaker 1: their own and open-ended question. So it does not to
30:11
Speaker 1: be both sides. It does happen on both sides.
30:14
Speaker 2: I mean, one is a completely fake thing and one
30:17
Speaker 2: is very real thing, but that is, yeah.
30:18
Speaker 1: One is, one is laudable. And then I think it is,
30:22
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that, um, infrastructure and healthcare
30:26
Speaker 1: were still up there as top priorities and healthcare for
30:29
Speaker 1: the open-ended as well. I thought that was important to
30:32
Speaker 1: note that people on their own and then when given
30:35
Speaker 1: a multiple choice list really do care about healthcare still.
30:39
Speaker 2: Healthcare is always an interesting one because it both works
30:42
Speaker 2: on its own and is often considered in these, when
30:47
Speaker 2: people see economic relief to voters, we've often seen in
30:52
Speaker 2: focus groups and other research formats, that means healthcare to
30:55
Speaker 2: them too. They see healthcare as an economic issue, even
30:57
Speaker 2: when it gets sectioned out sometimes in polls. So it
30:59
Speaker 2: ends up kind of, when they say economic relief, they
31:02
Speaker 2: also mean their finances, which means lower healthcare costs.
31:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's talk about Biden and the Democratic agenda. Good news. Very,
31:11
Speaker 1: very popular. 69% of voters support Biden's $ 1. 9 trillion rescue plan,
31:18
Speaker 1: including four out of 10 Trump voters. 55% of voters
31:22
Speaker 1: support raising the minimum wage to $ 15, including nearly one
31:25
Speaker 1: in five Trump voters. 55% support Biden's proposal to forgive $ 10, 000
31:29
Speaker 1: of student loan debt. And 52% support progressive Democrats' proposal
31:34
Speaker 1: to forgive $ 50, 000 of debt. So not much difference in
31:37
Speaker 1: the two, the 10 versus 50, even though there's a
31:39
Speaker 1: big fight about it online. 65% of voters, including 35%
31:44
Speaker 1: of Trump voters, again, support the For the People Act.
31:47
Speaker 1: And this is huge. That is the Democratic reform bill.
31:51
Speaker 1: that was described in our poll as one that would
31:53
Speaker 1: end dark money in politics, end partisan gerrymandering, automatically register
31:59
Speaker 1: citizens to vote if they're eligible, expand in-person early voting,
32:03
Speaker 1: make voting by mail simpler, and enhance election security with
32:07
Speaker 1: a paper trail for every ballot. I would say that's
32:10
Speaker 1: an unusually popular agenda. What about you?
32:13
Speaker 2: Incredibly unusual. 69% of anyone agreeing on anything in America
32:19
Speaker 2: right now is a gigantic deal.
32:22
Speaker 1: Four out of 10 Trump voters. That's way, as we'll
32:26
Speaker 1: talk about this in a bit, that's way more Trump
32:28
Speaker 1: voters than actually thought Biden won the election.
32:32
Speaker 2: Biden's election is so unpopular that even people who incorrectly
32:36
Speaker 2: believe he stole the election want him to put his
32:38
Speaker 2: agenda in place. That is amazing.
32:41
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So let's pass it, right?
32:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's easy.
32:46
Speaker 1: Is there anything about the... the support for Biden's agenda
32:50
Speaker 1: that you found notable before we move on to sort
32:52
Speaker 1: of what we need to do about it?
32:54
Speaker 2: The numbers around the economic relief and COVID stuff are
32:58
Speaker 2: higher than I think I would have guessed, but it
33:00
Speaker 2: makes sense. We're in a pandemic or recession, people like
33:03
Speaker 2: and want to get out of this mess. The minimum
33:06
Speaker 2: wage we've always known to be popular. We know that
33:08
Speaker 2: even in Florida, as Trump is winning, 60% of Floridians
33:10
Speaker 2: are passed a ballot initiative to raise it to $ 15.
33:14
Speaker 2: That is consistent with previous results and intuitively obvious, I think.
33:20
Speaker 2: The For the People Act and the democracy reform stuff
33:22
Speaker 2: is really interesting. And I think we need to explore
33:24
Speaker 2: it more and test various iterations of it. But there
33:28
Speaker 2: is an opportunity here. And I do wonder when I
33:31
Speaker 2: look at how the question was answered, whether the paper
33:33
Speaker 2: trail election security part brings you Republicans you would not
33:37
Speaker 2: have already had, since huge percentages of them think the
33:41
Speaker 2: election was stolen. And so that is potential for Democrats
33:44
Speaker 2: as they think about how they're going to put together
33:47
Speaker 2: either the state level or not federally, a democracy reform
33:52
Speaker 2: voting rights agenda is pairing election security with greater access
33:58
Speaker 2: to the ballot box as a way, that's not going
34:01
Speaker 2: to bring you necessarily partisan legislative Republicans, but it could
34:04
Speaker 2: bring you more support from Republican voters. So it's interesting.
34:09
Speaker 1: The other one like that, that stuck out at me
34:12
Speaker 1: is end dark money in politics. That is something that
34:15
Speaker 1: cuts across traditionally in polling has cut across party lines,
34:18
Speaker 1: even though Republican politicians love dark money in politics. But
34:22
Speaker 1: voters across the political spectrum do not like that. And
34:24
Speaker 1: I think starting with end dark money in politics might
34:26
Speaker 1: have boosted support for that a little bit. I will
34:29
Speaker 1: say even describing the rescue plan, we should just let
34:32
Speaker 1: everyone know, we described the rescue plan in the poll
34:36
Speaker 1: as a $ 1. 9 trillion rescue plan. We put the price
34:40
Speaker 1: tag on there, which is a big price tag. Did
34:42
Speaker 1: not scare people away. Did not scare Trump voters away.
34:45
Speaker 1: We did talk about the $ 1, 400 checks in the description.
34:48
Speaker 1: We talked about childcare subsidies. We talked about vaccination money.
34:53
Speaker 1: We talked about 100,000 public health workers as part of
34:56
Speaker 1: the plan. So we kind of gave it a good
34:59
Speaker 1: description of everything that's in in Biden's plan, but it
35:02
Speaker 1: was definitely one of the more popular things that we've
35:04
Speaker 1: ever tested in our polling, that plan, the economic plan.
35:08
Speaker 1: I will say on the For the People Act, I
35:12
Speaker 1: think that Democrats probably need to do a better job
35:16
Speaker 1: communicating why that reform is important. So when we, back
35:19
Speaker 1: to the priorities list, when voters were asked what they
35:22
Speaker 1: thought the Biden administration's top priority should be, only 8%
35:25
Speaker 1: selected Those types of voting reforms from the multiple choice list,
35:29
Speaker 1: which is very low. And they were barely mentioned in
35:33
Speaker 1: the open ended question. We only had five mentions of
35:35
Speaker 1: the filibuster. My heart breaks. One mention of the Supreme Court,
35:39
Speaker 1: two mentions of D.C. statehood and a smaller percentage of
35:43
Speaker 1: people prioritized policies that would expand voting. That was the
35:46
Speaker 1: 8 percent in the multiple choice list. than people who
35:49
Speaker 1: prioritize going after voter fraud, 26%. Those are, of course,
35:52
Speaker 1: mostly Trump voters. So we do have some work to
35:55
Speaker 1: do convincing people that voting reforms and democracy reforms need
35:59
Speaker 1: to be a legislative priority for Biden in this Congress.
36:02
Speaker 2: That is, you have hit on, I think, perhaps the
36:05
Speaker 2: biggest challenge that Democrats have writ large. is Republicans care
36:09
Speaker 2: more about breaking democracy than Democrats do about fixing it.
36:12
Speaker 2: And this is not yelling at Schumer or Biden or
36:15
Speaker 2: Joe Manchin or anyone else. This is our votes.
36:16
Speaker 1: I was yelling at the voters. Yeah, right.
36:19
Speaker 2: And when there is impetus and enthusiasm from the voters,
36:22
Speaker 2: politicians will respond. We do not have that for the
36:25
Speaker 2: things that are absolutely essential. And to your point, we
36:28
Speaker 2: have to connect those reforms to real things that people
36:31
Speaker 2: want and explain why they are blocking better, more affordable
36:35
Speaker 2: health care. a minimum wage, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
36:37
Speaker 2: And that's the ballgame right there.
36:41
Speaker 1: So we also paired a positive description of each Biden
36:43
Speaker 1: plan or policy with the description you might hear on
36:46
Speaker 1: Fox News. And when we describe each Biden plan, everyone
36:49
Speaker 1: gets between 58% and 64% support. So majority support, well
36:54
Speaker 1: over majority. COVID relief plan, his Build Back Better jobs plan,
36:59
Speaker 1: and his racial justice plans were the three most popular.
37:02
Speaker 1: But when each plan is given the Fox News framing,
37:05
Speaker 1: support drops closer to 50-50 for everything, except the COVID
37:09
Speaker 1: relief plan, which is still like a net 12 points popular,
37:12
Speaker 1: which tells you how popular that plan is. What does
37:15
Speaker 1: that tell you about how Democrats should sell these plans?
37:17
Speaker 1: Were you surprised that it dropped to 50-50? Did you
37:19
Speaker 1: think it would go lower than that?
37:23
Speaker 2: Democrats should be emboldened by these results because the framing
37:26
Speaker 2: we used, we did the Fox day side message, which
37:30
Speaker 2: is debt and deficits. The Fox night, the Fox primetime
37:33
Speaker 2: message is radical socialist, white supremacist, cancel culture, mad libs shit,
37:38
Speaker 2: which is the art, which is the one you're going
37:39
Speaker 2: to hear most from Republicans running for office is debt
37:42
Speaker 2: deficit in the one that. The reporters are much more
37:44
Speaker 2: likely to echo that, well, without a doubt, become part
37:48
Speaker 2: of the Morning Joe roundtable, playbook, narrative.
37:51
Speaker 1: New York Times editorial. Yeah.
37:53
Speaker 2: I mean, and we saw the power of that argument
37:58
Speaker 2: in 2009, 2010, when Obama was trying to pass his
38:02
Speaker 2: economic recovery agenda. And the fact that you can make
38:06
Speaker 2: a straight up argument against... the Biden's policies that is
38:11
Speaker 2: going to raise the deficit and it keeps it at
38:12
Speaker 2: majority or above support is a sign that the appetite
38:16
Speaker 2: for austerity politics, fear of deficits is so drowned out
38:20
Speaker 2: by the need for help for the economy and the
38:23
Speaker 2: pandemic right now.
38:27
Speaker 1: So the other big strategic question we tested in the
38:29
Speaker 1: poll is whether Biden and Democrats should go big and ambitious,
38:33
Speaker 1: even if it means doing it without Republican support or
38:37
Speaker 1: whether they should go smaller and compromise to get Republican votes. Dan,
38:40
Speaker 1: you wrote this morning's message box about this. What did
38:43
Speaker 1: the poll tell you? What does the message box say?
38:45
Speaker 2: As I wrote in the message box, and before I
38:46
Speaker 2: get to a poll set, I just want to do
38:48
Speaker 2: one quick plug, because if you subscribe to messagebox.substack.com between
38:52
Speaker 2: now and the end of the month, your first month
38:54
Speaker 2: subscription will go entirely to Run for Something, one of
38:57
Speaker 2: our favorite organizations that is already recruiting young progressives to
39:01
Speaker 2: run for office up and down the ballot. So between
39:04
Speaker 2: now and February 1st, messagebox.substack.com. Let's help Amanda Lipman and
39:08
Speaker 2: Run for Something continue to flourish in this post-Trump era. Okay,
39:12
Speaker 2: plug done. And what I took from all of the
39:16
Speaker 2: polling in here is that every decision in politics is
39:21
Speaker 2: a risk-benefit analysis. And what the poll tells us right
39:24
Speaker 2: now is the much bigger risk for Democrats is doing
39:29
Speaker 2: two little rather than doing too much. Biden's policies are popular.
39:35
Speaker 2: There is a huge appetite for action. That appetite is bipartisan.
39:41
Speaker 2: There is no patience for obstruction. People want bipartisanship and
39:47
Speaker 2: compromise in theory. but not at the expense of the
39:50
Speaker 2: relief they need. And so it's going to be choppy waters.
39:54
Speaker 2: We're already seeing it in the New York Times editorial board,
39:58
Speaker 2: the media today about unity and progress and bipartisanship. And
40:01
Speaker 2: is Susan Collins happy? People don't give a shit about that.
40:05
Speaker 2: They want their help right now. And that is what
40:09
Speaker 2: Biden and Democrats are going to be judged on. I
40:12
Speaker 2: really believe, I mean, Our bias is on our sleeves
40:15
Speaker 2: about the things we care about, how we feel about
40:17
Speaker 2: bipartisanship and the filibuster and all of that. But when
40:20
Speaker 2: you look at the numbers in this poll, as we
40:21
Speaker 2: sit here today, and things can change, people want big action,
40:29
Speaker 2: and they want it now. And so as Democrats make
40:31
Speaker 2: decisions about how long do we try to see if
40:33
Speaker 2: we can get five insurrectionists to come over and help
40:35
Speaker 2: us pass our agenda, or what do we do through
40:38
Speaker 2: budget reconciliation, or should it be 1.9 or 1 trillion
40:41
Speaker 2: or all of those things? more is better, sooner is better.
40:46
Speaker 2: And I think that is just, that is the opposite
40:48
Speaker 2: take that a lot of the blue dog Democrats and
40:51
Speaker 2: others took heading into the 2010 elections. Their belief was
40:54
Speaker 2: we did too much. TARP, Recovery Act, healthcare. The reality
41:01
Speaker 2: on the ground is what is going to matter based
41:03
Speaker 2: on this poll. And so take advantage of momentum you
41:06
Speaker 2: have and go get it done, even if it's going
41:09
Speaker 2: to cause some carping from Republicans.
41:11
Speaker 1: And I will say, there is some power in the
41:15
Speaker 1: argument on the other side. And this was crystallized in
41:18
Speaker 1: sort of two questions that we asked. And one question
41:22
Speaker 1: we asked was like, do you want Democrats to pass
41:27
Speaker 1: their agenda and their priorities with no compromise whatsoever, but
41:33
Speaker 1: they get all their priorities? Or do you want Democrats
41:36
Speaker 1: to get fewer of their priorities, but compromise and get
41:38
Speaker 1: Republican votes? And people in the poll said compromise by
41:42
Speaker 1: a 64 to 27 margin. So you're like, oh shit.
41:45
Speaker 1: Then we asked it, do you want Democrats to pass
41:48
Speaker 1: a bill with more relief that gets no Republican support
41:53
Speaker 1: or less relief that gets Republican votes? And they wanted
41:56
Speaker 1: more relief with no Republican votes by 46 to 38.
41:59
Speaker 1: And of course, The media will frame it as Democrats
42:04
Speaker 1: winning or losing, Republicans winning or losing, Republican priorities versus
42:08
Speaker 1: Democratic priorities, Joe Biden versus Mitch McConnell. That's how the
42:12
Speaker 1: media coverage is shaped. What we can't forget is that
42:15
Speaker 1: this is about delivering as much relief to people as possible,
42:19
Speaker 1: as fast as possible. And what voters want is relief
42:23
Speaker 1: and they want more of it. And they care more
42:25
Speaker 1: about getting a lot of relief in the middle of
42:28
Speaker 1: this recession, in the middle of this pandemic, than they
42:30
Speaker 1: do about getting Republican votes. But if it's only framed
42:33
Speaker 1: to them as Democrats aren't playing nice and Democrats won't
42:37
Speaker 1: compromise on the shit that Democrats want, then they're going
42:40
Speaker 1: to say, oh yeah, they probably should compromise. So it
42:43
Speaker 1: really is a messaging war here.
42:45
Speaker 2: It's a messaging war that happens in two parts. The
42:48
Speaker 2: first part is about getting caught trying. I do not believe,
42:54
Speaker 2: I know you do not believe, that there is a
42:56
Speaker 2: deal that can get 10 Senate Republicans that is substantial
43:00
Speaker 2: enough to meet the need. And if that is the case,
43:03
Speaker 2: we are doing a dance until we get to the
43:05
Speaker 2: part where we're going to have to pass this on
43:07
Speaker 2: a 50-vote budget reconciliation measure. And so this is what
43:11
Speaker 2: Biden has been doing. This is his message. We're going
43:13
Speaker 2: to try. We're going to reach out. And he's going
43:15
Speaker 2: to have to do that. But then the second part
43:17
Speaker 2: is when you make that turn to having to do
43:21
Speaker 2: this on a 50 vote, which I think is very
43:23
Speaker 2: important to note, does not mean it is only partisan.
43:27
Speaker 2: It is still– Republicans can still vote for budget reconciliation.
43:30
Speaker 2: You can still get those five votes. Biden, I think,
43:33
Speaker 2: would very much want to get some of those Republican
43:36
Speaker 2: votes and will try very hard to get some of
43:38
Speaker 2: the five people who are anti-violent mob, five Senate Republicans
43:43
Speaker 2: anti-violent mob to come over and vote for it. But
43:46
Speaker 2: once you make that turn, you have to be able
43:48
Speaker 2: to demonstrate to voters what would have been lost specifically
43:54
Speaker 2: had they gone the other route, the quote unquote compromise route.
43:57
Speaker 2: Like what were the demands Republicans were making? Take out
43:59
Speaker 2: the $ 15 minimum wage, cut vaccine funding, which uncertainly would
44:02
Speaker 2: have been it, cut money for teachers and firefighters. Like
44:05
Speaker 2: you're going to have to explain the cost of going
44:08
Speaker 2: one direction versus the benefits of going the other direction.
44:11
Speaker 2: That's the messaging challenge, I think.
44:14
Speaker 1: I think at some point you've got to push Republicans
44:17
Speaker 1: in Congress to say, OK, you don't like this bill.
44:19
Speaker 1: What do you want? Tell us your plan. Tell us
44:22
Speaker 1: what you would do without in this $ 1. 9 trillion plan.
44:24
Speaker 1: Like lay it out. Be specific. Because then the onus
44:28
Speaker 1: is on them and they look like the ones who
44:30
Speaker 1: want to deliver less relief to people. You know, I
44:33
Speaker 1: think it's really important to get to that point. And
44:35
Speaker 1: it's tough because obviously the Biden White House doesn't want
44:37
Speaker 1: to like kick the shit out of Republicans because, you know,
44:40
Speaker 1: new tone. Um, when I understand that, right, like that's
44:44
Speaker 1: the right move, but at some point you have to be,
44:45
Speaker 1: and you don't have to do it in a snarky way,
44:47
Speaker 1: but you have to point out that the reason Republicans
44:50
Speaker 1: don't support your bill is because they don't want, they
44:53
Speaker 1: don't want to deliver that much relief to Americans. And
44:56
Speaker 1: that's not going to be popular. Um, so I'm going
44:59
Speaker 1: to talk about the filibuster because we did pull on
45:01
Speaker 1: the filibuster, um, without mentioning a specific issue, 49% of
45:07
Speaker 1: voters support eliminating the filibuster and 40% are opposed. Then
45:11
Speaker 1: we asked a question tying it to the minimum wage
45:13
Speaker 1: and raising the minimum wage to $ 15. And we said,
45:16
Speaker 1: would you support eliminating the filibuster if it's being used
45:19
Speaker 1: to block an increase in the minimum wage to $ 15
45:22
Speaker 1: an hour? 53% of voters supported ending the filibuster in
45:26
Speaker 1: that scenario. So support rose from 49 to 53, which
45:30
Speaker 1: I do think shows that this argument of the filibuster
45:34
Speaker 1: can't happen as some theoretical argument that we all talk about.
45:38
Speaker 1: It has to be tied to a specific issue. And
45:41
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I hope Joe Manchin and Kirsten
45:43
Speaker 1: Sinema are listening.
45:44
Speaker 2: As they do every week.
45:46
Speaker 1: I know that.
45:47
Speaker 2: Joe Manchin right now is sitting somewhere in West Virginia,
45:50
Speaker 2: just sipping coffee from his dug on a mug cup
45:53
Speaker 2: and with his friend of the pod shirt on, getting
45:55
Speaker 2: ready to go.
45:57
Speaker 1: Hey, he's been on the pod before. We've had both
45:59
Speaker 1: of them on the pod before. We'll get him back on.
46:01
Speaker 2: I forgot we had Joe Manchin on the pod.
46:03
Speaker 1: Kirsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, come on. Anytime we can talk
46:05
Speaker 1: about the filibuster, happy to. But yeah, no, that's so
46:08
Speaker 1: a majority of voters do support getting rid of the
46:10
Speaker 1: filibuster for something else that everyone, or at least a
46:14
Speaker 1: lot of the media is framing as some kind of
46:15
Speaker 1: like partisan provision in the bill, which is raising the
46:20
Speaker 1: minimum wage to $ 15, which has majority support, including support
46:24
Speaker 1: among almost one in five Trump voters. I don't know.
46:28
Speaker 3: I don't know.
46:29
Speaker 1: But I do think... What do you think about how the...
46:32
Speaker 1: We haven't talked about this, how the filibuster standoff ended
46:37
Speaker 1: this week. It.
46:41
Speaker 2: It was one of those really tiresome inside DC debates
46:47
Speaker 2: where everyone is debating who won or who lost. And
46:50
Speaker 2: it was basically, I think, a stalemate. Now, I would note,
46:54
Speaker 2: we still... Do not yet have an organizing resolution. Mitch
46:58
Speaker 2: McConnell is still in charge of the Senate. Republicans are
47:01
Speaker 2: still in charge of the committees. So it hasn't actually
47:04
Speaker 2: resolved itself yet. We are where we were in the beginning.
47:09
Speaker 2: No Democrat changed their position. Chuck Schumer did not make
47:13
Speaker 2: some sort of pledge to McConnell. I don't think a
47:17
Speaker 2: whole lot changed. It just sort of laid down the
47:21
Speaker 2: reality of the situation we're in. Having been through this
47:27
Speaker 2: in 2013, when the Democrats did what is called the
47:30
Speaker 2: nuclear option, but where they repealed the filibuster for judicial
47:34
Speaker 2: appointments below Supreme Court and executive appointments, everyone was against
47:41
Speaker 2: changing the rules up until Mitch McConnell decided that newly
47:44
Speaker 2: elected President Barack Obama would not be allowed to have
47:46
Speaker 2: a labor secretary, a EPA administrator, and any number of
47:51
Speaker 2: key judicial appointments, and Democrats changed the rules. And so
47:55
Speaker 2: we're going to focus on mansion and cinema and all
47:59
Speaker 2: of that. But ultimately, I think the reality about whether
48:02
Speaker 2: the filibuster comes or goes is going to be on
48:03
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell. We can't just treat his obstruction as if
48:08
Speaker 2: it's a given. Like it's gravity and it's up to
48:11
Speaker 2: Democrats to figure out how to fly. How he approaches this,
48:15
Speaker 2: we'll decide. If he doesn't want the rules changed, then
48:17
Speaker 2: he's got to work in good faith with Democrats. And
48:20
Speaker 2: I think that's the missed opportunity of Manchin and Sinema
48:24
Speaker 2: being unwilling to put a caveat in their remarks like
48:27
Speaker 2: Jon Tester did. But even with that, regardless of what
48:31
Speaker 2: they said right now, what happens when important COVID relief
48:35
Speaker 2: or we are six months from now and important things
48:39
Speaker 2: that need to get done are not getting done. A
48:40
Speaker 2: budget is being blocked because budget reconciliation is already gone.
48:44
Speaker 2: The rubber is going to hit the road at some point.
48:46
Speaker 2: And I do believe Mitch McConnell cannot have his obstruction
48:49
Speaker 2: and the filibuster. He's going to have to pick between
48:51
Speaker 2: the two of them.
48:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so final thing to note in this poll
48:55
Speaker 1: before we go, probably the most disturbing, just 9% of
49:00
Speaker 1: Trump voters acknowledge that Biden won more votes. 9%. And
49:05
Speaker 1: it's a number that varies by news source. Just 3%
49:09
Speaker 1: of OAN and Newsmax viewers think that Biden won more votes.
49:13
Speaker 1: 17% of Fox viewers think that Biden won. There's libs
49:16
Speaker 1: over there watching Fox. And 25% of Trump voters who
49:19
Speaker 1: consume at least one mainstream news source think Biden won.
49:23
Speaker 1: We saw the same split on support for Biden's rescue plan.
49:26
Speaker 1: Trump voters who watch Fox and mainstream sources support the
49:29
Speaker 1: rescue plan. OAN Newsmax viewers do not. 14% of the
49:34
Speaker 1: OAN Newsmax crowd is also favorable towards QAnon. though fortunately
49:39
Speaker 1: a majority of Trump voters haven't heard of QAnon, so
49:41
Speaker 1: small blessings. And then the last one, Mike Pence's approval
49:45
Speaker 1: rating among Republicans has gone from 90% favorable, 5% unfavorable
49:50
Speaker 1: in our last pre-election poll in October to now 54% favorable,
49:58
Speaker 1: 27% unfavorable. Mike Pence was almost assassinated by an angry mob,
50:03
Speaker 1: survived it, and his approval rating is lower, a lot lower.
50:09
Speaker 1: Seems like the rise of Newsmax and OAN could make
50:11
Speaker 1: everything worse, huh?
50:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't seem like they're going to have a
50:14
Speaker 2: positive contribution to American democracy. There is a question about
50:20
Speaker 2: whether this is a self-selection issue.
50:23
Speaker 1: It always has been, right? Yeah.
50:26
Speaker 2: Are OAN and Newsmax radicalizing voters or radicalized voters turning
50:33
Speaker 2: to OAN and Newsmax? Because they've gotten their tolerance and
50:37
Speaker 2: appetite for The conspiracy theories, the white supremacy, the anger
50:42
Speaker 2: and hatred of Fox News just got so high that
50:45
Speaker 2: Hannity just wasn't doing it for him anymore. So they
50:47
Speaker 2: had to go find a stronger hit is, I think,
50:50
Speaker 2: part of it. Because up until two months ago, these
50:56
Speaker 2: outlets had tiny audiences that were a tiny fraction of anything.
51:02
Speaker 2: And so they've grown because people got mad at Fox
51:05
Speaker 2: and went looking elsewhere. And of course, Fox's response to
51:08
Speaker 2: that is to become more like OAN and Newsmax.
51:11
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Tucker the other night was defending QAnon. Hannity
51:16
Speaker 1: was out there spreading doubts about the vaccine. Say, oh,
51:18
Speaker 1: my friends tell me I shouldn't take the vaccine. Maybe
51:19
Speaker 1: I won't.
51:20
Speaker 2: Don't.
51:24
Speaker 1: Fox is getting worse. The existing primetime lineup is getting worse.
51:28
Speaker 1: They are adding more conspiracy nuts to the primetime lineup.
51:32
Speaker 1: And so they are clearly the Fox decision. Fox's reaction
51:36
Speaker 1: to OAN and Newsmax taking their audience is we're going
51:39
Speaker 1: to continue to go after that audience by becoming even crazier,
51:42
Speaker 1: which is a very bad development.
51:43
Speaker 2: Whenever a party is divided, there's an opportunity for the opposition.
51:47
Speaker 2: And there is an opportunity here. And we see it
51:49
Speaker 2: in this polling, which is Trump voters who make less
51:53
Speaker 2: than $ 50, 000 a year are much more favorable to Biden's
51:56
Speaker 2: economic agenda than Trump voters, overall Trump voters. 42% of
52:02
Speaker 2: Trump voters make under $ 50, 000 a year support the American
52:04
Speaker 2: Rescue Plan. 28% support the Student Debt Plan. And 29%
52:09
Speaker 2: support raising the minimum wage to $ 15. What is interesting
52:11
Speaker 2: about this is Trump changed the Republican coalition by bringing
52:17
Speaker 2: in more working class voters. Some of them new voters
52:19
Speaker 2: getting involved in politics for the same time. Some were
52:22
Speaker 2: Obama 2012 voters that he brought over. It's one poll.
52:25
Speaker 2: It has to be explored much deeper. It could be
52:28
Speaker 2: a passing thing. But I do think that there is
52:30
Speaker 2: potentially an opportunity here for Democrats to with a populist
52:33
Speaker 2: economic agenda to go win back some of those voters
52:37
Speaker 2: who were more attracted to Trump than the... That was
52:43
Speaker 2: a real Drumpf, Kefefi moment for me.
52:46
Speaker 1: Kefefi, yeah, there you go.
52:47
Speaker 2: That was a resistance Twitter brain thing.
52:49
Speaker 1: RT, if you agree, yeah.
52:52
Speaker 2: But there was an opportunity for Democrats to potentially go
52:55
Speaker 2: bring some of these voters back as... With Trump gone,
52:59
Speaker 2: the Republican Party... has kept his racism, his conspiracy theories,
53:03
Speaker 2: his QAnon, all of that, but it looks more corporatist
53:07
Speaker 2: and plutocratic than it did with Trump. He is a
53:10
Speaker 2: much better messenger for the quote-unquote American first agenda than
53:15
Speaker 2: any of these other Republicans that are standing out there,
53:17
Speaker 2: Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, et cetera. And so
53:20
Speaker 2: there may be a world to go get some voters
53:22
Speaker 2: and bring them back into the fold by running on
53:24
Speaker 2: this populist economic agenda.
53:26
Speaker 1: Well, it's also interesting, it points to the possibility that
53:30
Speaker 1: Some of the most, the fringiest, most radical Trump voters
53:36
Speaker 1: are the least economically anxious, which we saw in the
53:41
Speaker 1: attack on the Capitol that a lot of the people
53:43
Speaker 1: who went to the Capitol that planned to go to
53:44
Speaker 1: the Capitol that planned some of the events were actually
53:47
Speaker 1: very wealthy people. Trump supporters.
53:49
Speaker 2: Some of them took private jets. They took private jets.
53:53
Speaker 1: And it is interesting that maybe, you know, despite the
53:55
Speaker 1: stereotypes and the people in the diners and all that,
53:58
Speaker 1: that some of the people who actually are struggling the
54:00
Speaker 1: most who voted for Trump might be more open to
54:03
Speaker 1: the Democratic agenda or to Joe Biden's agenda than some
54:06
Speaker 1: of the more extreme Trump supporters who were at the Capitol.
54:09
Speaker 1: So that's just tells you a little.
54:13
Speaker 2: It does. We talk all the time in polling about
54:15
Speaker 2: the education divide. college versus non-college and all of that.
54:20
Speaker 2: I do think we also have to dig into the
54:23
Speaker 2: income divide too and look at that. It's not just
54:25
Speaker 2: one singular factor that is the greatest predictor. We have
54:28
Speaker 2: to look at all of them and it differs. It's
54:31
Speaker 2: often more complicated than one single factor like that.
54:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. And geography too is a big one. Okay. When
54:37
Speaker 1: we come back, I will talk to Ezra Klein of
54:40
Speaker 1: the New York Times. I'm now joined by New York
54:52
Speaker 1: Times opinion writer and the author of Why We're Polarized,
54:55
Speaker 1: Ezra Klein, his new podcast, The Ezra Klein Show, launched
54:59
Speaker 1: this week. How you doing, man?
55:01
Speaker 3: I'm all right.
55:02
Speaker 2: How are you?
55:02
Speaker 3: I'm COVID good, is what I always say.
55:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll take COVID good. I'm COVID good. How's being
55:08
Speaker 1: a New York Times columnist?
55:10
Speaker 3: It's a trip. There's something very strange about writing a
55:17
Speaker 3: piece about And then seeing that and your face at
55:19
Speaker 3: the New York Times, it imbues everything with an authority
55:23
Speaker 3: it probably doesn't deserve to have. I was talking to somebody,
55:26
Speaker 3: they're like, your work is so much better now. And
55:28
Speaker 3: I was like, no, no, my work isn't better. The
55:31
Speaker 3: font is just much more authoritative. This is the same
55:33
Speaker 3: work I've always been doing.
55:34
Speaker 1: No, I read it now and there's a lot more
55:38
Speaker 1: authority behind it.
55:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't I seem twice as old?
55:40
Speaker 2: Congratulations.
55:42
Speaker 1: You do, yeah. Well, we're both old now. So you
55:46
Speaker 1: wrote a piece in The Times last week that I
55:48
Speaker 1: think everyone should read titled, Democrats, Here's How to Lose
55:52
Speaker 1: in 2022 and Deserve It. And your basic argument is
55:56
Speaker 1: that the biggest threat to democracy and the fastest path
55:59
Speaker 1: back to another Trump is ineffective gridlocked government. Why do
56:04
Speaker 1: you think that is?
56:06
Speaker 3: So this is something that did not get well hashed
56:09
Speaker 3: out in the great economic anxiety versus racism wars. But
56:14
Speaker 3: globally and historically, something that right-wing populist authoritarian figures feed
56:20
Speaker 3: on is simply ineffective government, is a sense that the
56:23
Speaker 3: government does not work properly. Not just on behalf of
56:26
Speaker 3: the people, but really at all. And Terry, Moe and
56:30
Speaker 3: Howell have a great book on this. It's Presidents, Populism,
56:33
Speaker 3: and Something. But I quote it in the piece. But
56:35
Speaker 3: one of the points they make is simply take Donald
56:38
Speaker 3: Trump at his word. he came out and he said,
56:41
Speaker 3: I alone can fix it, right? All these people that
56:44
Speaker 3: are making these terrible deals. I think something, a lot
56:47
Speaker 3: of liberals got Donald Trump mediated through liberal media, right?
56:52
Speaker 3: And so what they mostly got was the most outrageous
56:55
Speaker 3: and often racist parts of his long rallies and everything.
56:59
Speaker 3: But if you went and listened to these whole hour,
57:02
Speaker 3: two hour riffs he did, a lot of it was
57:04
Speaker 3: about his claim to effectiveness, right? His claim as a businessman,
57:09
Speaker 3: as a guy who doesn't take shit from anybody, to
57:11
Speaker 3: be able to cut the deals that the current politicians
57:14
Speaker 3: who were selling you out couldn't. So it is really,
57:16
Speaker 3: really important, one, that people understand that as part of
57:18
Speaker 3: how he rose to power, but two, that he did
57:20
Speaker 3: it in a context after the Obama years. You and me,
57:23
Speaker 3: we were there, you were doing it. I was covering
57:26
Speaker 3: in 2009, 2010, when a ton of legislation happened under
57:29
Speaker 3: Obama and the Democratic Congress. But then there was six
57:31
Speaker 3: years- Six years where almost no legislative progress is made,
57:36
Speaker 3: not literally none, but almost none. And that does create
57:40
Speaker 3: an inability to say to people credibly, if you are
57:42
Speaker 3: from that party, right, if you're Hillary Clinton running in 2016,
57:46
Speaker 3: elect me and things will change. We will make things
57:48
Speaker 3: happen differently. It really deprives you of an ability to
57:51
Speaker 3: run as a change candidate again, because if it wasn't
57:54
Speaker 3: changing under your administration, why will it change under you?
57:58
Speaker 1: Well, and Also, I mean, I've thought about this for
58:01
Speaker 1: a long, long time because this is part of the
58:04
Speaker 1: message that Obama ran on in 2008. Like the most
58:07
Speaker 1: compelling part of the argument, aside from, you know, it
58:10
Speaker 1: wasn't just bringing the country together for the sake of
58:13
Speaker 1: bringing the country together. It was bringing people together to
58:16
Speaker 1: sort of break the gridlock in Washington. And even in
58:19
Speaker 1: our polling, like the most potent part of the message was,
58:22
Speaker 1: things aren't getting done in Washington. Washington is broken. And
58:25
Speaker 1: it is, whether it's been captured by lobbyists, whether it's,
58:29
Speaker 1: you know, partisanship, whatever it may be, nothing's coming out
58:32
Speaker 1: of DC. And so it certainly wasn't for a lack
58:36
Speaker 1: of trying on our part to try to get things done,
58:39
Speaker 1: because we were very aware through both terms that like
58:44
Speaker 1: we were going to be judged and the sort of
58:46
Speaker 1: the stability of democracy depended on, at least that's what
58:49
Speaker 1: Obama believed, The stability of democracy depended on government actually
58:53
Speaker 1: delivering for people and making a tangible difference in their lives.
58:57
Speaker 1: But that is a very hard thing to accomplish in
58:59
Speaker 1: this political system.
59:01
Speaker 3: And in addition to that, one of the problems that
59:03
Speaker 3: Obama faced, and in a very real way, this is
59:06
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to write about, and the people I
59:07
Speaker 3: am trying to convince in this op-ed, we say the
59:11
Speaker 3: Democratic Party as if it is a singular entity. I'm
59:14
Speaker 3: sitting here talking into a microphone and a lamp, and
59:16
Speaker 3: they're one thing. I can pick the microphone up and
59:19
Speaker 3: I can put it down. The Democratic Party is not
59:21
Speaker 3: one thing, particularly not in Congress, although not in the
59:24
Speaker 3: country either. And a really important question in how it
59:28
Speaker 3: functions is what are the constraints imposed on it, and
59:31
Speaker 3: for that matter, on its president, when it has a president,
59:36
Speaker 3: by the members who will cast the key hinge votes.
59:40
Speaker 3: So the Affordable Care Act is a different bill because
59:43
Speaker 3: Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman and Mary Landrieu and a
59:47
Speaker 3: couple other Democratic, importantly, members of the U.S. Senate insisted
59:51
Speaker 3: that it could not have a public option. It is
59:53
Speaker 3: a different and worse bill. It is a different bill
59:55
Speaker 3: because a bunch of so-called moderate members said it had
59:58
Speaker 3: to be under a trillion dollars. And so that led
1:00:00
Speaker 3: to this weird budget gimmick where it didn't start for
1:00:02
Speaker 3: four years because then its 10-year price tag would be
1:00:04
Speaker 3: under a trillion dollars. But that also meant the subsidies
1:00:07
Speaker 3: and the help was a lot less than it otherwise
1:00:09
Speaker 3: could have been. So one of the key things here
1:00:12
Speaker 3: is that Democrats Democrats who are in these key seats
1:00:16
Speaker 3: who think that the way to get reelected is to
1:00:19
Speaker 3: make things smaller and make them slower and cut them
1:00:23
Speaker 3: up and make them more complex, they got wiped out
1:00:26
Speaker 3: for the most part in 2010. There's still a couple
1:00:28
Speaker 3: people who fit that description around, and we can talk
1:00:31
Speaker 3: about them. But one thing I'm really trying to push
1:00:33
Speaker 3: at these kinds of Democrats is this is a failed
1:00:36
Speaker 3: political theory. You have to come up with a different one.
1:00:39
Speaker 3: This idea that you will make everything a little bit worse,
1:00:41
Speaker 3: but you will survive the fact that nobody likes your party,
1:00:44
Speaker 3: that doesn't work in a world where there's a 94%,
1:00:46
Speaker 3: 94% correlation between how people vote for their Senate candidate
1:00:51
Speaker 3: and their presidential candidate.
1:00:54
Speaker 1: Well, the few Democrats in Congress who still believe that
1:00:59
Speaker 1: Like they are the whole problem right now. Like I
1:01:01
Speaker 1: was trying to think about a way to make this
1:01:03
Speaker 1: conversation something other than like two filibuster haters convincing each
1:01:08
Speaker 1: other how right we are. Because we've both been longer
1:01:12
Speaker 1: than me even. Yeah, right. Well, and I realized that
1:01:15
Speaker 1: that is part of the larger, that's part of the
1:01:18
Speaker 1: problem of the larger debate over the filibuster. Like there's
1:01:20
Speaker 1: a lot of passionate people. choir preaching out there when
1:01:23
Speaker 1: it comes to the filibuster. And right now it seems
1:01:26
Speaker 1: like the only people that we really need to convince
1:01:28
Speaker 1: are Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and like two or three
1:01:32
Speaker 1: other Senate Democrats. I mean, on one hand, I do
1:01:35
Speaker 1: think that is progress because, you know, people who are
1:01:38
Speaker 1: just paying attention to politics today might not see that
1:01:40
Speaker 1: as progress, but like the fact that Chris Coons and
1:01:42
Speaker 1: Michael Bennett and all these other Senate Democrats, John Tester
1:01:45
Speaker 1: left the door open, right? Like all these Senate Democrats
1:01:48
Speaker 1: who you never would have thought would have given any,
1:01:51
Speaker 1: you uh it would have ever agreed to get rid
1:01:53
Speaker 1: of the filibuster or now at least open to it
1:01:56
Speaker 1: but like what do you how do you convince mansion
1:02:00
Speaker 1: cinema whoever else there may be that's still uh that's
1:02:04
Speaker 1: still resistant to this if you're chuck schumer.
1:02:06
Speaker 3: Well if i if i if i knew they'd probably
1:02:08
Speaker 3: be convinced but let me try to come at this
1:02:12
Speaker 3: from even a slightly different angle than the filibuster i
1:02:15
Speaker 3: always i'm trying to say three things in in in
1:02:18
Speaker 3: this piece and with this line of argument But it
1:02:21
Speaker 3: doesn't begin with a filibuster. Process and the way systems
1:02:24
Speaker 3: work reflect the outcomes you want to get from them. That's,
1:02:27
Speaker 3: I think, a really important point. And something I'm always
1:02:29
Speaker 3: trying to say to people is that there is a
1:02:32
Speaker 3: way we think a democracy, for whatever its rules are,
1:02:35
Speaker 3: should work, which is that the public elects people based
1:02:38
Speaker 3: on their agendas. Those agendas get passed or some rough
1:02:41
Speaker 3: facsimile of them get passed. And the public judges the results.
1:02:45
Speaker 3: And then they can throw the governing party out if
1:02:47
Speaker 3: they don't like them or bring them back if they do.
1:02:49
Speaker 3: And so just like on a first round question, like
1:02:53
Speaker 3: do people think that's how it should work instead of
1:02:55
Speaker 3: this weird way we do it now where the public
1:02:57
Speaker 3: votes for the agenda than the people they like better?
1:02:59
Speaker 3: Those people may or may not take office depending on
1:03:01
Speaker 3: what happens in the electoral college or house gerrymandering, whatever
1:03:05
Speaker 3: it is. Then those people probably can't govern even if
1:03:07
Speaker 3: they do take office. And then people fight about why
1:03:09
Speaker 3: nothing got done. So one, I just think it is
1:03:12
Speaker 3: important because I've watched this happen with Democrats before. I
1:03:14
Speaker 3: watched it happen through much of the Obama years. The
1:03:17
Speaker 3: Democrats– take seriously the commitments they have made to the
1:03:21
Speaker 3: public as actual promises. That it is something that feels
1:03:25
Speaker 3: unacceptable to them to campaign to the public in a
1:03:29
Speaker 3: way that is lying to them, such that it will
1:03:32
Speaker 3: increase their disillusionment when the people they voted into office fail.
1:03:36
Speaker 3: If you run for office and you say, we all
1:03:39
Speaker 3: support a $ 15 minimum wage, and then you say, well,
1:03:42
Speaker 3: we all did except for those three people. And so
1:03:44
Speaker 3: now you don't get anything. People are going to be disillusioned.
1:03:46
Speaker 3: They will not believe in you in the future. And
1:03:48
Speaker 3: so that's one reason why in this particular piece, I
1:03:52
Speaker 3: did frame things around this question of depriving populist authoritarians
1:03:56
Speaker 3: like Donald Trump from getting power again. I think something
1:04:00
Speaker 3: that the mansions of the world, the cinemas of the
1:04:02
Speaker 3: world really do believe in is that they are part
1:04:05
Speaker 3: of a project to protect liberal democracy. And something that
1:04:08
Speaker 3: Howell and Moe talk about is it a very common
1:04:11
Speaker 3: conceptual mistake that normal political figures make after defeating a
1:04:17
Speaker 3: would-be authoritarian is because they see themselves as defenders of
1:04:21
Speaker 3: the system, they snap back to defending the very kinds
1:04:26
Speaker 3: of dysfunction and ineffectiveness that gave the authoritarian power in
1:04:30
Speaker 3: the first place. They leave being upset about the fact
1:04:33
Speaker 3: that the system doesn't work for you to authoritarians, thinking
1:04:37
Speaker 3: that somehow they need to be the opposite of the
1:04:40
Speaker 3: authoritarian in all ways, And it's really the opposite, that
1:04:43
Speaker 3: in the aftermath of a near-death-for-American-democracy experience like Donald Trump,
1:04:48
Speaker 3: what you do is not revert to your pre-Donald Trump
1:04:50
Speaker 3: understanding of the status quo. What you need to do
1:04:53
Speaker 3: is try to think about what led somebody like him
1:04:56
Speaker 3: to get power and knowing that the party that, by
1:04:59
Speaker 3: the way, in the House, a majority of them voted
1:05:01
Speaker 3: to overturn the election, the party that still reflects Trumpism
1:05:04
Speaker 3: and will reflect it only more in the years to come,
1:05:07
Speaker 3: They have this electoral advantage in the House, this huge
1:05:09
Speaker 3: electoral advantage in the Senate, in the Electoral College. And
1:05:12
Speaker 3: as such, you cannot let them quickly come back into power.
1:05:15
Speaker 3: They need to be defeated after this for some period
1:05:17
Speaker 3: of time. And the only way to do that, or
1:05:20
Speaker 3: at least one of the only ways to do that,
1:05:22
Speaker 3: is to actually do the things that you promised people
1:05:24
Speaker 3: would do when they chose you in a landslide margin
1:05:28
Speaker 3: over the other party. And if you don't, then you
1:05:30
Speaker 3: are opening the door back up.
1:05:33
Speaker 1: I know. The idea that the response to Trump and
1:05:38
Speaker 1: what has happened to politics is that we've got to
1:05:41
Speaker 1: try harder to work together with the other side is
1:05:43
Speaker 1: so deeply ingrained, right? Like it's something that, you know,
1:05:47
Speaker 1: I've been yelling about for years, but like Manchin told
1:05:49
Speaker 1: the New York Times back in November, like, I don't
1:05:51
Speaker 1: know why anyone was surprised by what Manchin said this
1:05:53
Speaker 1: week about not getting, wanting to get rid of the filibuster.
1:05:56
Speaker 1: Back in November, he did an interview with the Times where,
1:05:58
Speaker 1: And he said that ending the filibuster would break the Senate,
1:06:01
Speaker 1: that the minority should have input or else the Senate
1:06:03
Speaker 1: would just become a glorified house. We've heard that argument before.
1:06:06
Speaker 1: And then he was specifically asked, well, what if there
1:06:08
Speaker 1: was a badly needed coronavirus stimulus package and Republicans won't
1:06:12
Speaker 1: make a deal? Would you at least make an exception
1:06:14
Speaker 1: for that? And he said, no, if we can't come together,
1:06:16
Speaker 1: God help us. Chuck Schumer can work with anyone. He'll
1:06:19
Speaker 1: be able to work with Mitch. Like, I don't, I
1:06:22
Speaker 1: assume that that is coming from a good faith place
1:06:27
Speaker 1: with Joe Manchin. Like I think Joe Manchin genuinely believes that.
1:06:31
Speaker 1: And I don't know how you disabuse him of that
1:06:34
Speaker 1: notion when it's not just like Manchin's coming up with
1:06:37
Speaker 1: that idea on his own. Like that's also a lot
1:06:39
Speaker 1: of the mainstream media has that view. Like the Times
1:06:42
Speaker 1: had an editorial today where they're like, don't sign so
1:06:46
Speaker 1: many executive orders, Joe Biden. Like work with other people
1:06:51
Speaker 1: on stuff. And I'm just like, what, how... You guys
1:06:53
Speaker 1: know what's going on here. You witnessed the last four years. Like,
1:06:57
Speaker 1: I don't know how we sort of move past that
1:07:01
Speaker 1: way of thinking.
1:07:02
Speaker 3: So I think there are a couple of things here.
1:07:03
Speaker 3: You've probably seen this a lot over the years, but
1:07:06
Speaker 3: it was over time something I came to realize and
1:07:08
Speaker 3: that influences my thinking very, very heavily. The worst guides
1:07:14
Speaker 3: to the dynamics of Congress are members of Congress.
1:07:18
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, for sure.
1:07:19
Speaker 3: And that is because they experience everyone else in Congress
1:07:23
Speaker 3: as individuals. And as individuals, they seem really, really, really
1:07:28
Speaker 3: reasonable until they cast that vote at the end of
1:07:30
Speaker 3: the day. I have never covered like any major issue
1:07:33
Speaker 3: where at the beginning, it didn't seem like you could
1:07:35
Speaker 3: get a lot of compromise. I mean, my God, like
1:07:37
Speaker 3: the Lucy and the football dynamics of the Affordable Care Act, where,
1:07:40
Speaker 3: you know, right up until basically the end, Chuck Grassley
1:07:43
Speaker 3: was saying the individual mandate can get support from both parties.
1:07:45
Speaker 1: Obama wrote about that in his book. Yeah.
1:07:47
Speaker 3: It's so wild. And so, but one thing to take
1:07:50
Speaker 3: it very seriously is that one of the things that is,
1:07:52
Speaker 3: that fools a guy like Joe Manchin, and fools may
1:07:55
Speaker 3: be too strong a word here, but one way he
1:07:57
Speaker 3: experiences Congress differently than than I do is he spends
1:08:01
Speaker 3: a lot of time with his counterparts on the Republican side.
1:08:04
Speaker 3: And I spend some time with them. I'm a reporter.
1:08:06
Speaker 3: I talk to them. And everybody is more reasonable when
1:08:10
Speaker 3: they are talking to you than when they are voting.
1:08:11
Speaker 3: Like everybody. And something that really, really parts me from
1:08:16
Speaker 3: Senator Manchin is I have come to the view that
1:08:21
Speaker 3: even if you believe it is really important to have
1:08:24
Speaker 3: minority input on bills. And I'm not sure I actually
1:08:27
Speaker 3: think it is important. The way other systems work doesn't
1:08:30
Speaker 3: work that way. But nevertheless, let's say it is. The
1:08:33
Speaker 3: filibuster makes it worse. The core thing that people need
1:08:37
Speaker 3: to get about this is that the great myth in
1:08:40
Speaker 3: American governance is that bipartisanship, bipartisan input, is something the
1:08:46
Speaker 3: minority wants and the majority has to be incentivized to offer.
1:08:50
Speaker 3: When it is precisely the reverse. Bipartisanship is something the
1:08:55
Speaker 3: majority wants, The minority has to be heavily incentivized to
1:08:58
Speaker 3: offer because the majority is really helped by bipartisanship. If
1:09:01
Speaker 3: you can pass a bill and it's got a huge
1:09:03
Speaker 3: bipartisan backing, then you can run around the country and say,
1:09:06
Speaker 3: you're great at governing and you should be reelected. And
1:09:08
Speaker 3: then you get reelected and the minority loses even more seats.
1:09:11
Speaker 3: I mean, You're really asking them to act against interests, which,
1:09:14
Speaker 3: by the way, is why other systems don't work like this,
1:09:17
Speaker 3: because it's a crazy way to set up incentives. But
1:09:19
Speaker 3: the minority is every incentive to sabotage the majority. So
1:09:23
Speaker 3: if they are going to play ball, they need real
1:09:26
Speaker 3: incentives to do so. The filibuster is an incentive in
1:09:28
Speaker 3: the other direction. It gives them this capacity. You can
1:09:32
Speaker 3: imagine an incentive list where number one is you want
1:09:36
Speaker 3: to get reelected and number two is you want to
1:09:38
Speaker 3: get the majority back. if you let them kill bills,
1:09:42
Speaker 3: it lets them possibly get the majority back by sabotaging you.
1:09:45
Speaker 3: If they can't kill bills, at least to get reelected,
1:09:48
Speaker 3: maybe they need to show they're getting something done and
1:09:50
Speaker 3: participate on bills in order to get earmarks, pork, things
1:09:53
Speaker 3: they need in the bills. At least it creates a
1:09:55
Speaker 3: constructive channel. But the filibuster creates a channel for them
1:09:58
Speaker 3: to get the majority back by simply killing everything. So
1:10:01
Speaker 3: it does not incentivize compromise. It incentivizes sabotage.
1:10:05
Speaker 1: I mean, Dan and I were just talking about this
1:10:08
Speaker 1: before we started this interview. Like, Rand Paul forced a
1:10:12
Speaker 1: vote where they could only get five Republican senators to
1:10:16
Speaker 1: say that a trial was constitutional for the guy who
1:10:18
Speaker 1: incited a mob that almost killed them and their colleagues.
1:10:23
Speaker 1: And yet we think we're going to pick off 10
1:10:25
Speaker 1: of them to work on a COVID relief plan. Like,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: I don't... And here's the thing, like... You were saying
1:10:33
Speaker 1: this earlier, like I hate saying like Democrats have to
1:10:35
Speaker 1: be better about this or Democrats have to do this
1:10:37
Speaker 1: because you think Democrats and it's like we've actually come
1:10:39
Speaker 1: a long way. Like the Biden White House is probably
1:10:42
Speaker 1: more despite all of his rhetoric on unity and bipartisanship.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: I think the Biden White House as a whole is
1:10:47
Speaker 1: more clear eyed about this than we were in the
1:10:49
Speaker 1: Obama White House because they learned the lessons that we did.
1:10:52
Speaker 1: I think that our caucus is. is far more progressive
1:10:55
Speaker 1: and far more clear-eyed than it's ever been in the Senate.
1:10:58
Speaker 1: And of course, I think the House is in a
1:10:59
Speaker 1: great place too. So we've actually made huge strides, but
1:11:03
Speaker 1: like the real fear I have is one that you voiced,
1:11:06
Speaker 1: which is like, if the entire agenda is held up
1:11:10
Speaker 1: because Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema decide not to eliminate
1:11:14
Speaker 1: the filibuster, like voters aren't going to get that it's
1:11:17
Speaker 1: their fault. Voters are going to say like, fuck, the
1:11:19
Speaker 1: Democrats just didn't do anything again and they didn't pass
1:11:21
Speaker 1: anything and they didn't improve my life. And so, yeah,
1:11:24
Speaker 1: maybe I'll take a listen to the next populace.
1:11:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And by the way,
1:11:28
Speaker 3: I will say that I think Manchin and Sinema are
1:11:30
Speaker 3: out there taking some heat for others who want to
1:11:32
Speaker 3: be quieter. But we're both in California. The senior senator
1:11:35
Speaker 3: from California, Dianne Feinstein, has also come out this way,
1:11:39
Speaker 3: which I think is an embarrassment, frankly.
1:11:41
Speaker 1: How many more do you think there are besides Feinstein?
1:11:44
Speaker 3: I think the question is not– it's always hard to
1:11:47
Speaker 3: tell where people's bottom lines are if they would fold
1:11:49
Speaker 3: under pressure. That is where I think the Democratic Party,
1:11:53
Speaker 3: as you say, moving dramatically on this issue matters because
1:11:56
Speaker 3: pressure can get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise
1:11:59
Speaker 3: want to do or that's not their first choice in
1:12:00
Speaker 3: doing it. A lot of the people we've talked about,
1:12:02
Speaker 3: they've been persuaded over time this is not where they started.
1:12:05
Speaker 3: Michael Bennett was a huge opponent of doing anything on
1:12:07
Speaker 3: the filibuster for many, many, many years.
1:12:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:12:10
Speaker 3: And I think he's moved a lot on that issue.
1:12:11
Speaker 3: So have a bunch of them. The Democratic Party, though,
1:12:17
Speaker 3: has everything you say about it. It has to start
1:12:21
Speaker 3: from the simple fact that the Democratic Party is behind
1:12:25
Speaker 3: the eight ball in American politics. In the Senate, there
1:12:28
Speaker 3: is a six to seven point advantage for Republicans because
1:12:31
Speaker 3: of the kind of median Senate state. is six to
1:12:33
Speaker 3: seven points to the right of the median voter. So
1:12:35
Speaker 3: Democrats have to win these huge landslides, the 50-50 majority.
1:12:40
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, the 50-50 split in the Senate right now.
1:12:42
Speaker 3: The 50 Democrats represent 41 million people, 41 million more
1:12:48
Speaker 3: than the 50 Republicans, 41 million. In the House, the
1:12:53
Speaker 3: number is not that big, but it's quite large. And
1:12:56
Speaker 3: then obviously, The Electoral College could have flipped with a
1:12:59
Speaker 3: shift of 40,000 votes, even as Joe Biden won by
1:13:02
Speaker 3: 7 million votes. So the Democratic Party is in a
1:13:05
Speaker 3: way that is historically unprecedented, really, really disadvantaged by the
1:13:09
Speaker 3: way American politics weights geography. So then the problem is
1:13:13
Speaker 3: that the hinge senator, your mansions, your cinemas, et cetera,
1:13:17
Speaker 3: if Democrats had power in relationship to their votes, Joe
1:13:20
Speaker 3: Mitch would not be the last Democrat. There would be
1:13:22
Speaker 3: eight Democrats there who could be that 51st vote. And
1:13:25
Speaker 3: the issue right now is Joe Manchin. And I do
1:13:27
Speaker 3: want to say, I give him credit on this. Joe
1:13:30
Speaker 3: Manchin is doing something incredibly difficult in American politics, which
1:13:33
Speaker 3: almost no one is able to do, which is remaining
1:13:36
Speaker 3: a Democrat from an extraordinarily red state. There are very
1:13:39
Speaker 3: few of those people out there right now. And the
1:13:41
Speaker 3: Democratic majority would not exist without Joe Manchin. So he
1:13:44
Speaker 3: has some idea.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: He only won by three points in 2018 after winning
1:13:48
Speaker 1: by a lot more than that in the last several years.
1:13:51
Speaker 1: I don't know that Joe Manchin gets elected again. in
1:13:55
Speaker 1: 2024 from West Virginia. And I think he probably knows that. Yeah.
1:13:59
Speaker 3: And so when I think about him, I think of
1:14:01
Speaker 3: two things. One is that I do still think it
1:14:04
Speaker 3: is more likely he gets elected if Democrats are seen
1:14:07
Speaker 3: as governing well rather than poorly. Nobody cares about whether
1:14:10
Speaker 3: or not the filibuster exists. And then number two, look,
1:14:14
Speaker 3: even if you didn't get reelected, at least you did something, right?
1:14:17
Speaker 3: I mean, some political scientists, and I love my political scientists,
1:14:20
Speaker 3: have come back at me and said, well, you know, like,
1:14:23
Speaker 3: It actually isn't always true that passing good policy is
1:14:25
Speaker 3: good politics. And I know. I've read the policy feedback
1:14:29
Speaker 3: literature too. But you know what? If you do it
1:14:31
Speaker 3: and you get knocked out of office or you don't
1:14:34
Speaker 3: get the majority back next time, at least you helped
1:14:36
Speaker 3: a lot of people rather than losing and not helping
1:14:38
Speaker 3: a lot of people.
1:14:39
Speaker 1: That was Obama's thought when it looked like the ACA
1:14:44
Speaker 1: was going to die. And, and Rahm and everyone was like,
1:14:47
Speaker 1: you're going to lose in 2012 if you keep pushing
1:14:49
Speaker 1: this monstrous bill and it's going to be bad and blah, blah, blah.
1:14:52
Speaker 1: And he was like, if I lose, I lose. Like then,
1:14:55
Speaker 1: like I promised I would try to do healthcare and that,
1:14:58
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to like put my approval rating
1:14:59
Speaker 1: up on a shelf and admire it. Like, I'm just
1:15:01
Speaker 1: going to do it, which is also partly why I
1:15:03
Speaker 1: thought to myself, like, Joe Manchin's got to look at
1:15:05
Speaker 1: this seat and got to think about 2024 and think like,
1:15:09
Speaker 1: am I really going to win again in West Virginia? Like,
1:15:11
Speaker 1: why don't I just help? Like, you can tell the
1:15:13
Speaker 1: guy genuinely wants to help people in West Virginia from
1:15:15
Speaker 1: what he's saying. Unless he's just a really good liar.
1:15:17
Speaker 1: But like, I believe that he does. You know, people
1:15:20
Speaker 1: like Sinema, I sort of wonder even a little bit
1:15:23
Speaker 1: more because I'm like, she's in a pretty competitive state.
1:15:25
Speaker 1: that is turning bluer. I don't quite know where her
1:15:28
Speaker 1: resistance is coming from. But like, let's say Manchin and
1:15:32
Speaker 1: Sinema don't budge for a while, but we still have
1:15:35
Speaker 1: a White House, a House, and most of a Senate
1:15:37
Speaker 1: that want to do a lot to help people fast
1:15:39
Speaker 1: in these next two years. What does that look like
1:15:42
Speaker 1: to you? And do you think it could be enough
1:15:44
Speaker 1: to sort of avoid a disaster in 2022?
1:15:46
Speaker 3: Let me come back to the disaster in 2022 question,
1:15:50
Speaker 3: because that's actually harder than the first part. So the
1:15:53
Speaker 3: first thing to say here is that budget reconciliation is
1:15:56
Speaker 3: going to be everything. And you guys have talked about
1:15:59
Speaker 3: this on the show, but the very quick version is
1:16:00
Speaker 3: budget reconciliation is this weird process from the 1974 Budget Act,
1:16:05
Speaker 3: which created a fast track approval process to reconcile budgets
1:16:10
Speaker 3: between the House and the Senate. Then somebody realized you
1:16:12
Speaker 3: could just put anything in that process and that would
1:16:14
Speaker 3: get around the filibuster. But you can only use it
1:16:16
Speaker 3: once a year. There's some static around that, but I
1:16:19
Speaker 3: think that's basically right. So then the Senate did this
1:16:22
Speaker 3: new thing. They created a set of constraints on it
1:16:25
Speaker 3: called the Byrd Rule. So anything that goes through budget
1:16:27
Speaker 3: reconciliation has got to be mainly about taxing and spending.
1:16:30
Speaker 3: And it can't increase deficits outside of 10 years.
1:16:33
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:16:34
Speaker 3: And it can't touch Social Security. So one is that
1:16:38
Speaker 3: you can do quite a lot there on economics. So
1:16:40
Speaker 3: a lot of other things you can't. So one of
1:16:41
Speaker 3: my big concerns is I think democracy promotion and democracy
1:16:44
Speaker 3: deepening is really important. House Democrats have H.R. 1. Democrats
1:16:48
Speaker 3: have S.R. 1, the For the People Act. It's a
1:16:49
Speaker 3: great bill. It cannot go through budget reconciliation. It will
1:16:52
Speaker 3: be filibustered immediately. So that's one thing you can't do.
1:16:55
Speaker 3: But you can, say, do checks through budget reconciliation. You
1:16:58
Speaker 3: could expand the child tax credit through budget reconciliation. You
1:17:00
Speaker 3: could do great things on health care through budget reconciliation.
1:17:03
Speaker 3: But the other thing you could do if your mansions
1:17:06
Speaker 3: and cinemas don't want to vote to get rid of
1:17:08
Speaker 3: the filibuster but do want to actually get things done—
1:17:11
Speaker 3: The way budget reconciliation works is you do something and
1:17:13
Speaker 3: then let's say that it doesn't fit, right? It's not
1:17:15
Speaker 3: about taxing and spending. So somebody raises a point of
1:17:18
Speaker 3: order and then the parliamentarian rules and advises the vice
1:17:21
Speaker 3: president and like, okay, like that's the end of that.
1:17:24
Speaker 3: You could vote to overrule the point of order, right?
1:17:27
Speaker 3: You could just vote to say, nope, we actually think
1:17:29
Speaker 3: this fits in budget reconciliation. And what, the Republicans are
1:17:32
Speaker 3: going to run on? This was abusive of the budget
1:17:34
Speaker 3: reconciliation process in a way us putting and we're drilling
1:17:37
Speaker 3: and tax cuts, what? Like nobody cares, right? So one
1:17:39
Speaker 3: thing you could do is use budget reconciliation and expand
1:17:41
Speaker 3: its boundaries. This is, I should say, Bernie Sanders' very
1:17:44
Speaker 3: explicit plan. It's what he talked about in the campaign.
1:17:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I remember. I remember interviewing him about
1:17:51
Speaker 1: the filibuster and feeling I was I didn't understand why Bernie,
1:17:55
Speaker 1: of all people, was so for keeping the filibuster. But
1:17:57
Speaker 1: he had this whole budget reconciliation thing. overrule the parliamentarian
1:18:01
Speaker 1: plan that sounds very complex, but really isn't. Like you said,
1:18:04
Speaker 1: like the way this works is, all right, $ 15 minimum wage.
1:18:07
Speaker 1: Does it affect the budget or not? Let's try. Let's
1:18:10
Speaker 1: throw it in with the rest of the COVID relief pill.
1:18:12
Speaker 1: Someone raises a point of order. Parliamentarian says, no, it
1:18:14
Speaker 1: doesn't fit. Kamala Harris says, yeah, it does. And then
1:18:17
Speaker 1: that's that. Then it goes in.
1:18:19
Speaker 3: And then there's gotta be a vote because they can
1:18:21
Speaker 3: do the thing. But if Democrats are willing to vote
1:18:23
Speaker 3: for it, they can do quite a lot through there.
1:18:25
Speaker 3: And as weird as it sounds, like I want to, like,
1:18:27
Speaker 3: if you are a listener and you're like, John and
1:18:30
Speaker 3: Ezra sound like they're explaining something completely ludicrous. This is
1:18:34
Speaker 3: a crazy way for something to work. You are right.
1:18:36
Speaker 3: If you feel like you have gotten drunk and left Earth,
1:18:39
Speaker 3: that is correct. This is not the way you should
1:18:41
Speaker 3: run a government. I really do not like any of
1:18:43
Speaker 3: these outcomes. But the Senate does stuff like this all
1:18:46
Speaker 3: the time. I mean, budget reconciliation being used in any
1:18:49
Speaker 3: way the way it is now is this, right? This
1:18:51
Speaker 3: is not– budget reconciliation is not for any of this,
1:18:54
Speaker 3: but the Republicans do it, the Democrats do it. So
1:18:56
Speaker 3: Senate has a tendency to not solve problems directly, but
1:19:00
Speaker 3: instead to come up with unbelievably complex ways of, of
1:19:03
Speaker 3: like working around them sometimes indirectly. So this would be
1:19:06
Speaker 3: really fitting. It's, um, I always say like gridlock, you're
1:19:10
Speaker 3: in LA. I would say like gridlock is a very
1:19:12
Speaker 3: apt metaphor because when things get gridlocked, it's not that
1:19:14
Speaker 3: like nobody goes anywhere. You start taking really weird side street,
1:19:18
Speaker 3: like shortcuts that are not shortcuts and that are very
1:19:20
Speaker 3: inefficient and use up a lot of gas. And that's
1:19:22
Speaker 3: the way we legislate now. It's gridlocked, so we do
1:19:25
Speaker 3: all this weird stuff on side streets. But it's better
1:19:27
Speaker 3: than not doing anything at all. I do want to
1:19:31
Speaker 3: make one other just quick point, though, on policy construction,
1:19:33
Speaker 3: because it's not just that they need to get rid
1:19:35
Speaker 3: of the filibuster, and I know how much you want
1:19:36
Speaker 3: to talk about this. But they need the stuff they
1:19:38
Speaker 3: do to be simple and to help people fast before 2022.
1:19:42
Speaker 3: That's part of not having a disaster in 2022.
1:19:44
Speaker 1: You mean like not giving people tax cuts and having
1:19:46
Speaker 1: them show up by like changing the withholding tables and
1:19:48
Speaker 1: your checks like we did in the Recovery Act? Yeah, exactly.
1:19:50
Speaker 3: So make and work pay was designed to be invisible, right?
1:19:53
Speaker 3: Don't do that. Checks are a great example here. You
1:19:57
Speaker 3: can do a lot on health care that happens really quickly.
1:19:59
Speaker 3: Obamacare did actually, the political theory behind it that it
1:20:02
Speaker 3: would eventually become popular was true. But it took a
1:20:05
Speaker 3: long time because the bill took a long time to
1:20:06
Speaker 3: give benefits. Do things that are quick, that people feel,
1:20:10
Speaker 3: and that they can trace back to government. I think
1:20:12
Speaker 3: this is a super important point that people underplay. For
1:20:15
Speaker 3: a very long time, in order to get bipartisan support,
1:20:19
Speaker 3: Democrats have preferred doing private-public hybrid options where the government
1:20:25
Speaker 3: is doing something, but in a way that it looks
1:20:26
Speaker 3: like the private sector is doing it, like the government
1:20:29
Speaker 3: is spending money to get people health insurance. but it's
1:20:31
Speaker 3: being done in this complicated way through private insurance systems.
1:20:34
Speaker 3: Do not do that. You cannot govern in the way
1:20:38
Speaker 3: meant to get Republican support if you cannot get Republican support,
1:20:41
Speaker 3: because then you're just getting really bad things into your
1:20:43
Speaker 3: bill that are complex and make people not like the
1:20:45
Speaker 3: government and make it hard for things to be used.
1:20:48
Speaker 3: But you're also not getting the bipartisan cover. So then
1:20:50
Speaker 3: Chuck Grassley turns around and says, your individual mandate is unconstitutional.
1:20:54
Speaker 3: And now you've got Chuck Grassley's program and Chuck Grassley's criticisms.
1:20:58
Speaker 3: Don't do that. Be simple, fast, big.
1:21:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. And look, is it, is it going too far
1:21:04
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump to like sign the checks, the stimulus checks? Yes,
1:21:09
Speaker 1: of course. But honestly, like that's the, like you do,
1:21:13
Speaker 1: I do think Democrats forget once we're governing to like
1:21:16
Speaker 1: sufficiently advertise that the benefits we deliver are coming from
1:21:20
Speaker 1: the leadership in charge. Like every time I would drive
1:21:23
Speaker 1: around in 2010, 11 and see a construction project and
1:21:26
Speaker 1: there was like a little recovery acting on it. Like
1:21:28
Speaker 1: should have been like a big picture of Barack Obama
1:21:30
Speaker 1: or something when a road is finished or a bridge
1:21:32
Speaker 1: is finished. I do think that Democrats need to spend
1:21:36
Speaker 1: more time connecting the dots for people because people don't
1:21:40
Speaker 1: see government in their lives often.
1:21:42
Speaker 2: No, they don't.
1:21:42
Speaker 3: And one, just rebuilding that is important. And I will
1:21:45
Speaker 3: say something that I think is important and makes this
1:21:47
Speaker 3: a very different period than 2009 to 2010 is the
1:21:49
Speaker 3: Biden administration has the ability to to more directly make
1:21:56
Speaker 3: a government operation part of people's lives and a massive
1:21:59
Speaker 3: improvement of lives through the vaccine program, through the vaccine rollout.
1:22:02
Speaker 3: than any administration since a major war, right? I mean,
1:22:06
Speaker 3: they could have FEMA and National Guard operations operating everywhere
1:22:10
Speaker 3: doing 24-7 vaccination sites. And at the end of that,
1:22:13
Speaker 3: you can hug your family again, right? I mean, nobody
1:22:16
Speaker 3: comes into office with this kind of ability to use
1:22:18
Speaker 3: the power of the government to actually make lives better.
1:22:20
Speaker 3: So that's gonna be something they can do without that
1:22:22
Speaker 3: much congressional help and how they do it is really
1:22:24
Speaker 3: gonna matter. But yes, you need to rebuild the connection
1:22:27
Speaker 3: between people and the government Look, we're talking a lot
1:22:31
Speaker 3: about the Democratic Party, but I will just say that
1:22:34
Speaker 3: one reason this is important is American politics is not
1:22:36
Speaker 3: going to function without a more sensible and real Republican Party.
1:22:41
Speaker 3: And one way you push the Republican Party into some
1:22:45
Speaker 3: level of reform is Democrats have to compete against it harder.
1:22:49
Speaker 3: They have a handicap against them. It's really, really hard.
1:22:52
Speaker 3: But they cannot give the Republican Party inches it has
1:22:54
Speaker 3: not earned. And creating complex, slow-moving parties programs where people
1:22:59
Speaker 3: do not feel the government moves in their lives quickly
1:23:00
Speaker 3: and is helpful, it allows Republicans to continue demonizing the government.
1:23:05
Speaker 3: You go back to the old Bill Clinton, the era
1:23:07
Speaker 3: of big government is over. Somebody was tweeting the other
1:23:09
Speaker 3: day that the era of the era of big government
1:23:11
Speaker 3: is over. And this is a moment people are really seeing.
1:23:16
Speaker 3: It is scary when the government cannot help you and
1:23:19
Speaker 3: you need it. Joe Biden comes into office at a
1:23:22
Speaker 3: time that is unlike any since the New Deal, World
1:23:26
Speaker 3: War II, you know, maybe a couple other small exceptions,
1:23:29
Speaker 3: where he can make clear that the government is there
1:23:32
Speaker 3: to help you when you need it, and you need
1:23:33
Speaker 3: them there when you need it. And like, that's a
1:23:35
Speaker 3: pretty big opportunity. It's a big opportunity.
1:23:38
Speaker 1: And just to close it all out, it might be
1:23:40
Speaker 1: the last opportunity, partly because the way the House map is,
1:23:44
Speaker 1: the Senate map, the Electoral College getting worse, like all
1:23:48
Speaker 1: of this stuff is getting to a point where I
1:23:50
Speaker 1: actually do believe that if we don't use the opportunity
1:23:53
Speaker 1: we have now in these next two years or four years,
1:23:56
Speaker 1: we might find ourselves governing in a minority or at
1:23:59
Speaker 1: least operating in a political system that gives an undue
1:24:02
Speaker 1: advantage to the minority, a party that's governing to minority
1:24:06
Speaker 1: for many, many years to come, which is a problem.
1:24:08
Speaker 3: This is 100% true. This is also, I know I'm
1:24:11
Speaker 3: just going back to preaching the choir on the filibuster here,
1:24:12
Speaker 3: but this is why democracy reform is important. It just is.
1:24:17
Speaker 3: Democrats are in a position where if they just let
1:24:19
Speaker 3: the current trends take over, It doesn't– like they are
1:24:23
Speaker 3: going to be asked to win by such unrealistic margins.
1:24:26
Speaker 3: They're going to be like either somebody permanently in the
1:24:28
Speaker 3: minority or they're going to permit a Republican Party, which
1:24:32
Speaker 3: is true for Trump's Republican Party, that could never compete
1:24:34
Speaker 3: for majority of the public to win with an ethno-nationalist
1:24:38
Speaker 3: appeal to a minority of the public. And that's a
1:24:40
Speaker 3: really dangerous place to be in. Whereas if you get
1:24:42
Speaker 3: rid of the filibuster or you create some other pathway
1:24:45
Speaker 3: and you pass things like H.R.1 and S.R.1, you give
1:24:48
Speaker 3: statehood to D.C., which it richly deserves because that is
1:24:51
Speaker 3: the right thing to do, not because it is a
1:24:52
Speaker 3: power grab. You at least offer statehood to Puerto Rico,
1:24:55
Speaker 3: give them self-determination. Maybe they choose it, maybe they don't.
1:24:58
Speaker 3: But you can do a lot to create a fair
1:25:00
Speaker 3: playing field. And you know what? Like, this seems like
1:25:03
Speaker 3: the most obvious thing to say, but for the party
1:25:06
Speaker 3: with democracy basically in its name, democracy is a good system.
1:25:10
Speaker 3: And making sure we live in one is a worthwhile
1:25:13
Speaker 3: and principled political goal.
1:25:16
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been saying this since, like, right after
1:25:19
Speaker 1: John Lewis died, thinking like, you know, rename it the
1:25:23
Speaker 1: John Lewis... John Lewis Civil Rights Act. And let McConnell,
1:25:27
Speaker 1: let the Republicans filibuster that. Let that be the one
1:25:30
Speaker 1: that they filibuster. Make them go to the floor, filibuster
1:25:33
Speaker 1: the John Lewis Voting Rights Bill or democracy reform. We'll
1:25:36
Speaker 1: put all these different democracy reforms in the bill. And H.R.
1:25:39
Speaker 1: 1 now is sort of beefed up from what it was.
1:25:42
Speaker 1: And make that be the one that we break the
1:25:45
Speaker 1: filibuster on. Because like that is probably, you probably get
1:25:48
Speaker 1: the most emotional punch from that. And it probably will
1:25:52
Speaker 1: be the easiest for people to understand that they're actually
1:25:55
Speaker 1: filibustering a desire to make voting easier.
1:25:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:26:00
Speaker 3: And to get money out of politics and to do
1:26:01
Speaker 3: a bunch of things, it isn't even that any of
1:26:03
Speaker 3: these ideas would fix all the problems. Like if you
1:26:05
Speaker 3: added DC and Puerto Rico to states, the Senate would
1:26:08
Speaker 3: still have a big pro-Republican bias. Like it would still
1:26:10
Speaker 3: be not an even fight over there, but it would matter.
1:26:14
Speaker 3: And so this is like maybe in the end analysis,
1:26:16
Speaker 3: like what I would say to the mansions and the
1:26:18
Speaker 3: cinemas of the world. They are consigning themselves to the
1:26:21
Speaker 3: minority in the future. They are consigning the voters who
1:26:24
Speaker 3: have put their faith in them, who have put their
1:26:26
Speaker 3: faith in them to make their lives better, to not
1:26:29
Speaker 3: having that trust returned. I understand for how long politicians
1:26:34
Speaker 3: have operated putting first the aesthetics and performance of a
1:26:39
Speaker 3: small-D democratic political system before the actual work and conflict
1:26:43
Speaker 3: necessary to get it. But to those who prefer the
1:26:47
Speaker 3: decorum Of a political system to actual democracy. I don't
1:26:52
Speaker 3: think that is a moral standpoint. I don't think it
1:26:54
Speaker 3: is how Senator Sinema or Senator Manchin think of themselves,
1:27:00
Speaker 3: but it is what they are doing. They are consigning
1:27:02
Speaker 3: the voters who trusted them to powerlessness or to a
1:27:06
Speaker 3: system that is not going to represent them unnecessarily. There
1:27:10
Speaker 3: is no reason for this and there is no defense
1:27:12
Speaker 3: of it.
1:27:13
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure they're listening to this and we just
1:27:15
Speaker 1: changed their minds. So mission accomplished. Ezra Klein from the
1:27:19
Speaker 1: New York Times, thank you so much for joining. Everyone
1:27:22
Speaker 1: check out Ezra's podcast, The Ezra Klein Show, launched with
1:27:24
Speaker 1: the New York Times this week. And pick up his book,
1:27:28
Speaker 1: Why We're Polarized. Outstanding book. Thanks for joining.
1:27:31
Speaker 3: Thank you. Always a pleasure.
1:27:36
Speaker 1: Thanks to Ezra for joining us today. And everyone have
1:27:39
Speaker 1: a good weekend. We will see you next week.
1:27:41
Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
1:27:44
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
1:27:47
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
1:27:52
Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
1:27:55
Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
1:27:59
Speaker 1: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
1:28:02
Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
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Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
1:28:09
Speaker 1: every week.